Trustworthiness and dedication top the list of skills emerging in job descriptions
These two traits are nearly tied for the skills showing up in the most new job descriptions. When taken together, they suggest that employers are looking for reliably good employees who are committed to their jobs and likely to stay for a long time. And adaptability and self-motivation have been showing up repeatedly throughout the year, suggesting that employers are seeking employees who can work independently and in an ever-changing environment. On the whole, it seems that employers are seeking to hire people who can weather change and commit to an employer for the long run.
Job openings shift away from mid-sized firms to larger employers
Organisations with 5,000 or more employees have doubled the number of jobs they are hiring for in the last year. This month in particular the largest employers made up a larger proportion of the job openings advertised across the U.K. and Ireland. Job are shifting away from mid-sized firms, those with 50-600 employees. In spite of news stories about redundancies at large employers, they are continuing to hire at a faster pace than other firms. However, there is relative resilience in hiring amongst the smallest businesses.
Methodology
Market IQ collects job postings daily from over 5 million websites across the U.K. Our system automatically identifies, extracts, and structures job data into 100+ attributes using Textkernel’s AI powered parsing technology. Each posting is normalised against professional taxonomies, enriched with company information, and deduplicated using sophisticated algorithms to identify unique job opportunities. The system maintains high levels of accuracy through automated quality controls and continuous improvement processes, making it a trusted source for U.K. labour market insights.
Skills
Market IQ utilizes Textkernel’s proprietary Skills Normalisation Taxonomy (SNT) to extract and normalise skills from job postings. Our taxonomy encompasses 13,200+ unique skill concepts mapped through 250,000+ terms, covering professional skills, IT skills, soft skills, and languages. Using advanced machine learning, the system identifies skills in context, disambiguates ambiguous terms, and normalises them to standardised concepts—enabling accurate cross-market analysis regardless of how employers phrase skill requirements. The taxonomy is continuously updated quarterly based on millions of job postings, market feedback, and labour market trends. This data-driven approach ensures Market IQ captures both established and emerging skills as they appear in the U.K. job market, providing unparalleled insights into skill demand across industries and regions. All analysis of skills excludes any skills that appear in fewer than 10,000 job descriptions.
