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The Independent and Yahoo will earn a commission from purchases made via links in this article. Pricing and availability are subject to change.A notable surge in job vacancies for delivery drivers, couriers, actors, entertainers, presenters and pest control officers has been seen in recent weeks, new research indicates.Overall, the UK job market saw 1.7 million adverts in June, marking a 9 per cent increase on May and an 11 per cent rise year-on-year, according to the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (Rec).The biggest regional increases were recorded in Anglesey, Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly, and Cheshire. Significant rises were also noted in agriculture, retail, and hospitality roles, which Rec suggests bodes well for summer seasonal hiring.Lorraine Laryea, Rec’s chief standards officer, said: “There is a clear uptick in firms taking action on long-held hiring plans. We do need to be careful of seasonal effects, including the two bank holidays in May and the onset of summer hiring in locations like...

More people can fit on to the top deck of a standard London bus than will be directly employed on the new Jackdaw gasfield in the North Sea, industry documents show.Only 27 direct full-time jobs would be created by Jackdaw, one of the biggest gasfields remaining in the North Sea, according to an environmental impact assessment filed publicly by its owner, Adura, a joint venture between Shell and Norway’s Equinor.The document states: “Over the lifetime of the field there would be a consistent level of employment averaging at nearly 500 jobs a year in direct, indirect and induced employment – this includes 273 direct jobs which exist on the Shearwater host installation and [an] additional 27 Jackdaw-specific jobs.”The fossil fuel industry, along with the Conservatives, Reform UK and sections of the Labour party, is lobbying Andy Burnham, the incoming prime minister, for Jackdaw and Rosebank, an oilfield west of Shetland, to be given the go-ahead.On Thursday some media reports suggested...

9. Data sources and quality Data source and collectionThe data for this release come from HM Revenue and Customs’ (HMRC’s) Pay As You Earn (PAYE) Real Time Information (RTI) system. They cover the whole population rather than a sample of people or companies, and they will allow for more detailed estimates of the population. More information on the quality of the data and the steps we take to quality assure it can be found in our Quality assurance of administrative data used in earnings and employment from PAYE RTI methodology.Our statistical practice is regulated by the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR). The OSR sets the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the...

AI usage is measured in "tokens", which are small chunks of text that AI systems use to understand, analyse and generate language. On average, one token is roughly equivalent to three-quarters of an English word.There have been astonishing increases in AI use in 2026, and the increase in token use has vastly outweighed the declining “per token cost”.The world's top companies that are using AI had deployed "token leaderboards" to try to get their employees to create as much gain in productivity as possible from the most advanced models.Trillions, and sometimes thousands of trillions of tokens (quadrillions) have been used over the past few months primarily for “agentic use”, which is for agents that can perform tasks automatically. The problem here is that incredible bills were racked up, so much so that many of those companies have now begun to ration the use of these models.This is important. It might show that there are limits to how much work could...

South Africans working from home are increasingly finding themselves employed not by companies in Johannesburg or Cape Town, but by businesses thousands of kilometres away in the UK. And for local job seekers, the trend could mean access to better-paying opportunities without having to leave South Africa. Job Crystal CEO Sasha Knott says the recruitment company is seeing growing demand from international businesses looking to hire South Africans to work remotely. “We're finding more and more are working for international companies,” Knott said. She said the trend was particularly noticeable among UK businesses hiring South Africans, and the opportunities were no longer confined to the technology sector. “We find it in finance, sales, marketing; a whole range of different industries and different kinds of jobs where people are working from home remotely.” RELATED: More global employers recruiting South Africans as skills shortages growWhy UK companies are hiring South Africans For international employers, South Africa offers an attractive combination: skilled and educated workers at a lower cost...

Expanding Heathrow airport will take thousands of jobs from other regions of the UK, including almost 10,000 from the West Midlands alone, according to an analysis of the government’s own forecasts.An economic paper published by the Department for Transport last month shows that airports in England and Wales are likely to lose millions of passengers if Heathrow builds a third runway, in a significant blow to regional jobs.Birmingham airport alone is set to lose out on 7.5 million passengers a year by 2050 – a decrease that equates to about 9,500 jobs foregone at the airport and in its supply chain, according to economists.The findings could cast further doubt over the political support for the expansion, a little over a week after Andy Burnham became prime minister.The previous chancellor, Rachel Reeves, was a vocal champion of the plans for a third runway; while Burnham has said too much infrastructure spend goes on the south of England and has promised to...

Table of Contents Show more Show less Whether you’re a university student thinking about future employment, or a working professional contemplating a career change, many factors are at play when deciding which job to go for. And one is, undeniably, which career pays the most money. Of course, the right job for you depends on much more than just salary. But earning potential is likely to be a key concern, especially if you’ve invested time and money in higher education. So, what are the highest-paying jobs in the UK? To find out, we’ve used the latest data from the 2021 Census, the Office for National Statistics’ Labour Market Report and the House of Commons Research Library. Average pay in the UK As of March 2021 (the latest Census), there were 37.5 million people in England and Wales of working age (18 to 64) which equates to 62.9% of the population. Of those aged 16 and over, 29.4 million were recorded as being in work – or ‘economically...

What’s happening? The UK government is consulting on increasing the information on pay shared by UK employers. They are proposing that employers should be required to include pay and conditions information in job adverts or in writing to a candidate before an interview takes place. These are currently just proposals. No changes have yet been confirmed and any changes are likely to need an Act of Parliament and legislation. However, a consultation opened on 14 July 2026 and will close on 27 October 2026. The consultation sets out various proposals for how this could work in practice and invites comments from interested parties.   Its underlying aim appears to be encourage transparency in pay decisions and prevent pay discrimination occurring from the outset rather than waiting for it to be challenged through tribunal claims. There are two phases to the proposed reforms. Phase 1 = fix the current system. Phase 2 = make equal pay effective for all. Phase 1 includes requiring employees to publish...

UK employers are creating jobs for experienced staff with artificial intelligence skills and cutting back elsewhere, according to new figures that show how the technology is starting to create a two-track labor market.  British firms posted about 10% fewer vacancies this month than in January 2025, data from job search website Indeed shared with Bloomberg shows. However, the fall disguised wide disparities as firms increasingly adopt AI to cut costs and boost productivity.  Software developers, whose profession has been transformed by AI and suffered dramatic job losses since 2022, are back in demand with postings rising 14%. Much of the increase came from senior roles and those directly linked to AI.  Meanwhile, occupations such as IT and engineering, where AI enhances the value of experience by taking over routine tasks, are among the few that have held up since last summer.  Elsewhere, from retail and manufacturing to white-collar roles that are more vulnerable to substitution like accounting or marketing, vacancies have fallen by double...