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AI: Jobs, Power & Money
27JUL

UK vacancies rise for the first time

2 min read
10:02UTC

The Office for National Statistics recorded 712,000 vacancies for April to June, the first quarterly rise this beat has tracked, with no breakdown by AI exposure.

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EconomicDeveloping
Key takeaway

British vacancies rose for the first time this year, and no official figure can say why.

UK vacancies rose to 712,000 for April to June, up from 705,000, in the labour market bulletin the Office for National Statistics published on Tuesday 21 July 1. That is the first quarterly increase since the decline this beat has tracked began. The 705,000 reading had taken vacancies below their pre-pandemic baseline for the first time , and June's bulletin recorded a five-year low .

The rest of the release moves the same way. Payrolled employees remain down 85,000 on the year, a far smaller fall than the 210,000 recorded in May. Real regular pay grew 0.3% on a CPIH basis, up from 0.1%. CPIH is the inflation measure that includes owner-occupier housing costs. Unemployment held at 4.9%.

Nothing in the bulletin mentions AI, automation or technology. The ONS still runs no AI breakdown, which leaves the agency measuring Britain's labour market unable to say whether the improvement it has just recorded happened in the roles most exposed to the technology or in the roles least exposed to it. Every ONS release on this beat since May has moved against workers. This one did not. Two more quarters like it would be needed before anyone could call the decline over.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

Every quarter, the UK's Office for National Statistics counts how many job vacancies employers have open. That number just rose for the first time in this run of data, to 712,000 from 705,000. It is a small increase after a long run of falls, and economists are divided on whether it means hiring is finally picking up, or whether it is just a small bounce after the number had fallen unusually low. Meanwhile, the number of people actually on company payrolls kept falling.

Deep Analysis
Root Causes

The rise follows two consecutive ONS bulletins recording five-year lows in May and June, so the July uptick is measured against an unusually depressed base rather than a strong absolute level; 712,000 remains below the 2022 peak of over 1.3 million.

Seasonal hospitality and retail recruitment ahead of the summer period is a recurring driver of July vacancy counts specifically, a pattern the ONS bulletin does not flag as distinct from a genuine structural turn.

What could happen next?
  • Meaning

    UK vacancies rising to 712,000 is the first quarterly increase this ONS series has tracked, but it follows two consecutive five-year lows, making it a rebound from a trough rather than a return to 2022 levels.

  • Consequence

    Payrolled employment fell 85,000 year-on-year even as vacancies rose, showing employers may be advertising roles without net headcount growth.

Sources:Office for National Statistics
Mentions:Office for National Statistics →
First Reported In

Update #18 · SAP freezes R&D headcount as others deny AI

Office for National Statistics· 27 Jul 2026
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Causes and effects
Caused by
UK vacancies fall below pre-Covid line
July's vacancy rise reverses the fall below the pre-pandemic baseline the ONS first recorded in May.
Occurred 27 May 2026
Read story →
UK jobless rate climbs to 4.9%
July's vacancy rise follows directly from the five-year low the ONS recorded in June's bulletin.
Occurred 18 Jun 2026
Read story →
This Event
UK vacancies rise for the first time
The first UK labour figures in months to move in workers' favour arrive with no way to test whether AI had anything to do with it.
Different Perspectives
European Commission
European Commission
The European Commission's draft Annex III guidelines, closed for comment on 23 July, treat algorithmic scoring in recruitment, pay and termination as high-risk regardless of whether a human signs off, echoing Spain's Audiencia Nacional ruling 101/2026 on concealed scheduling algorithms. Brussels is shifting the fight from counting AI job losses to assigning legal liability for the tools themselves.
Office for National Statistics
Office for National Statistics
The Office for National Statistics recorded UK vacancies rising to 712,000 on 21 July, the first quarterly increase this beat has tracked, with payrolled employment down 85,000 on the year against May's 210,000 fall. The bulletin names no AI cause anywhere, and that is the point: nothing in the release confirms the displacement story it gets cited to support.
Christian Klein, SAP
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Betsey Stevenson, University of Michigan
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