The job market for entry-level workers in the UK hasn't been this tough in years

• UK graduate job vacancies fell 45.6% in July, hitting their lowest since April 2016.
• Adzuna reports a decline in entry-level jobs, with increased competition for fewer openings.
• AI and economic challenges are reshaping entry-level opportunities, impacting graduate roles.

The UK job market is looking grim for people fresh out of university.

According to the latest UK Job Market Report from job-matching platform Adzuna, the company's index — which aggregates online listings from more than 1,000 sources — counted an average of 8,383 live UK graduate vacancies in July.

That's down 45.6% from July 2025 and the lowest level since Adzuna launched the monthly series in April 2016. The figure has collapsed from more than 55,000 at its mid-2017 peak.

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Adzuna's broader entry-level category was less stark but still weak, falling 8.1% year over year. Across the market, vacancies also declined, while competition for each opening increased.

"July's numbers are a step backwards, not a blip," Andrew Hunter, Adzuna's cofounder, said in a press release on Monday.

"We'd been watching things improve gradually for months, but that stopped in July. The graduate job market also keeps setting new lows, which tells us employers still haven't found a reason to open up hiring at that level."

Findings from Indeed also point to a decline in listings, albeit a less dramatic one. In a report published on the 3rd of August, Indeed said postings with "graduate" in the title were down about 7% year over year as of July 10, their lowest level for that point in the year since 2020.

The squeeze reflects more than one problem. Employers are contending with a sluggish economy, higher costs, and uncertainty. AI is also reshaping the bottom rungs of the career ladder by taking on routine work once assigned to junior employees.

A PwC analysis, released in June and based on more than 1 billion job ads globally, found that US entry-level roles exposed to AI were seven times more likely to require traditionally senior-level skills than comparable roles were in 2019.

Companies are responding in different ways. EY has turned an eight-week internship into a yearlong residency to build judgment and critical-thinking skills, while PwC's UK arm cut its graduate intake amid economic weakness, AI, and offshoring.

There are bright spots for entry-level workers: IBM, LinkedIn, and other employers are expanding early-career engineering programs, betting that AI-native graduates can be an advantage.