eBoss presents fresh UK jobs market data, as driver shortages remain the top recruitment news story of September.

UK Job Market Data: September 2021

Shortages of available drivers remains a top issue for recruiters in September. It is a topic we have examined over consecutive months, so what can the latest data tell us?

As always, we have used live Jobfeed data to learn more about the real-time job creation in Britain. With these software tools, we can break down the entire UK job market by profession, sector, region, or contract type. In this study, we are taking a deep dive into the Driving profession.

But we are doing something a little different for this month’s report. While we examine the driver category, we will be breaking down that data even more than usual. This offers a granular understanding of the volume of demand for certain skills, which specific professions are needed, and who is advertising.

Number Crunching

• 12,318 unique driving jobs exist on the Jobfeed database. These are listings taken directly from the end employer. We have removed the possibly of duplicate job entries appearing more than once, by excluding all agency listings from the study.

• 8,626 of these vacancies have been created within the last thirty days. This figure is not shown on the infographic.

• 7,651 of all driving jobs contain the keyword “courier”. This is the single largest subcategory of driver vacancy: accounting for 62 per cent (62%) of all open job orders.

• 3,101 driver vacancies contain the keyword “HGV”. This illustrates the extent of driver shortages within the UK’s vital logistics supply chain. However, this figure is substantially lower than other reported estimations of the shortfall.

• 664 Bus driver vacancies remain unfilled. While a large focus has been placed on Heavy Good Vehicle (HGV) drivers, and the impact on supply chains, public transportation is equally critical.

• 663 forklift operator positions remain open in September. It is interesting to consider the broad impact of a shortage of drivers across various qualifications and working environments. Forklift and pallet truck operators represent an important part of retail logistics. A shortage of skilled professionals in this area could contribute to supply chain disruption.

Who is hiring?

We rarely publish the names of organisations which are hiring, as part of our reports. This represents premium data which is of particular value to recruiters and Jobfeed subscribers.

We are making an exception for this study, however, as learning who is hiring provides its own set of insights.

We have broken down the “Courier” subcategory to identify some of the top advertisers within the sector. This indicates not only the rate of job creation within the sector, but also the level of competition. Are top employers providing incentives to applicants, to ensure they secure the requisite workforce?

Employer Insights:

• 480 of the courier job orders this month originate from Yodel. The home delivery firm utilises self-employed and directly employed drivers for its services. The Barclay Brothers-owned enterprise boasts the second largest road fleet after Royal Mail.

• 167 courier positions have been created by Amazon. The retail giant continues to expand, with lockdown and pandemic restrictions increasing the demand for home delivery services.

• 116 positions for home delivery drivers have been created by Deliveroo. The scale of the food delivery enterprise’s hiring aspirations highlights the booming market in home delivery services beyond conventional retail.

• 98 new driver roles have been created by the Royal Mail. These positions cover many descriptions: from internal couriering and supply chain link-up, to the more typical postal worker making delivery rounds.

• 68 new drivers are sought by DHL. The American-branded courier is currently owned by German Deutsche Post – the largest package delivery firm on the planet.

About our Data

We track the rate of job creation by extracting real-time data from the eBoss Jobfeed system. We provide a snapshot analysis of data as it is available at time of writing. Our data analysis is not necessarily conducted under scientific conditions. Data is not normalised to any key metric. Quality control of data is conducted at the point of collection, but not at the point of analysis. Errors may be present within individual listings which affect their suitability for inclusion.

Note: Our data only collects job listings made by the final employer, not agency adverts. This is to avoid duplication of data where multiple agencies may be attempting to fill the same role.