Advertised salaries in the UK are showing a fifth consecutive month of negative growth, according to the latest data from job website Adzuna.
The statistics show the average advertised salary in September 2018 was £33,415, compared with £33,470 in August 2018; this represents a fall of 0.3%. However, advertised salaries have grown 4.7% overall since July 2017.
Andrew Hunter, co-founder of Adzuna, said: “It’s worrying to see salaries declining once again, just as real wages were looking like recovering back towards where they were in 2012. Given the competition for jobs is at an all-time low, we’d expect salaries to rise as [organisations] compete for the remaining top talent.
“That said, I am buoyed by the fact that over 180,000 British workers will see a bump in their pay from this month, as the [voluntary] living wage rises to £9 per hour across the country.”
The rise of the country-wide rate of the voluntary living wage from £8.75 an hour was announced by the Living Wage Foundation on 5 November 2018, along with an increase of the rate for London, from £10.20 to £10.55 an hour.
The fastest growing job sector for advertised salaries is teaching, with an average of £31,185, up 16.5% year on year. At the other end of the scale are advertised salaries for domestic help and cleaning jobs, standing at an average of £16,778, having fallen 12.8% over the year.
The data from Adzuna also shows a drop in the number of advertised job vacancies in the UK, with the September 2018 total of 1,121,754 showing a fall of 1.4% from the August figure of 1,137,904.
There has been a 12% year-on-year drop in the number of applications for British jobs from France, Germany, Italy and Spain.
Hunter said: “Brexit is clearly having an impact on the health of the UK job market. Adzuna’s data clearly shows vacancies and wages feeling the pressure and, interestingly, migration patterns for jobs look to be changing as application rates for British jobs drop from workers on the continent.”