The June KPMG and REC UK Report on Jobs carried the usual gloom about permanent hiring, and most of the coverage stopped there. Buried a little further down was the more interesting line. Permanent placements fell across the Midlands and the South of England in May, London posted a renewed and solid decline, and one region alone bucked the trend. The North of England was the only part of the country to record an increase. The surveyors were careful to call it marginal, though it is worth your attention all the same.
The map is starting to move
One month of a diffusion index is not a trend, and I would not build a relocation plan on a single marginal reading. The Report on Jobs is compiled by S&P Global from around 400 recruitment consultancies, and it tracks which way hiring is moving each month. So treat the North’s lone rise as an early signal worth watching.
What makes it worth watching is the company it keeps. Temp billings rose across all four monitored English regions in May, at the fastest national pace in over three years, while permanent recruitment slowed. When the flexible market runs hot and the permanent market cools, and when London slips while the North holds, you are looking at employers hedging on geography as well as on contract type. Senior candidates should read that early.
The structural backdrop is thinner than the headlines admit
Step back from the monthly survey and the official numbers tell a sober story. ONS put UK vacancies at 707,000 for March to May 2026, down 19,000 on the quarter and the lowest level since early 2021, and outside the pandemic trough the lowest since 2014. Vacancies are 4.2 per cent down on the year and more than ten per cent below where they sat before the pandemic. There are now 2.5 unemployed people for every vacancy, up from 2.2 a year ago.
The detail that should concern the senior reader sits in the sector split. The largest single fall in vacancies by volume was in professional, scientific, and technical activities, down 8,000 on the quarter. That is the white-collar, high-skill end of the market, the ground on which most executive careers are built. When the professional services corridor contracts, the squeeze reaches the boardroom floor soon enough. I wrote about the wider senior crowding in this recent piece, and the regional data adds a geography to it.
Why London feels it first
London carries the heaviest concentration of professional, financial, and technology headquarters hiring in the country, so it also carries the most exposure when confidence drops. The REC pinned May’s caution on higher costs, the Gulf crisis, and what it politely called new employment red tape. When boards grow nervous, the capital’s premium roles are the first to be paused, because they are the most expensive to get wrong.
None of this makes London a poor place to look for a senior role. It remains the deepest market in the country by some distance. The point is narrower. The old assumption that proximity to the City is the surest route to your next appointment is looking dated, and the institutions slowest to notice tend to be the ones still insisting everyone show up to a Mayfair office five days a week. If the growth, however slight, is showing up in the North, an executive who has ruled out everything above Watford is closing off part of a market that is already tight.
What a senior candidate should do with this
Widen the aperture. If you have spent a decade in one city, look honestly at the regions posting investment and hiring, and decide in advance how portable you are willing to be. Hybrid patterns have made a Manchester, Leeds, or Birmingham mandate more workable than it was five years ago, and being open about relocation early in a process is a genuine advantage when the shortlist is long.
Read the flexible market too. With permanent hiring frozen in much of the country, interim and fractional work is where a good deal of senior demand has gone, a shift I covered in this earlier article. A strong executive CV now has to prove you can land in a business and deliver value quickly, wherever it is based, and that you are a low-risk hire in a market where every appointment is scrutinised. If you are weighing a move across regions or into a new sector, structured career transition support earns its keep, and if redundancy is part of your picture, our outplacement and redundancy support is built for exactly this market. For those who would rather have a steady hand on the tiller through an unsettled year, a career advisory retainer keeps your positioning current as the map shifts.
Frequently asked questions
Is senior hiring really stronger in the North than in London? On May’s Report on Jobs data, the North of England was the only English region to post a rise in permanent placements, while London saw a renewed decline. It was a marginal move on a single month, so treat it as an early signal worth tracking before drawing firm conclusions.
How weak is the wider UK job market in 2026? ONS recorded 707,000 vacancies for March to May 2026, the lowest since early 2021 and more than ten per cent below pre-pandemic levels, with 2.5 unemployed people per vacancy. Professional, scientific, and technical roles saw the largest fall by volume.
Should I consider relocating for a senior role? If your search has stalled in one city, widening your geography can meaningfully enlarge a tight market. Decide early how portable you are, and signal openness to hybrid or regional roles at the start of a process, when it counts most.
Where is executive demand still holding up? Interim, fractional, and contract work has absorbed a good share of senior demand while permanent hiring is cautious, and flexible staffing rose at its fastest rate in over three years in May.
The geography of senior hiring rarely shifts in a straight line, and I would not tell you the centre of gravity has moved north on the strength of one survey. What the data does say is that the comfortable assumptions are wearing thin. London is quieter than it was and the skilled professional market is still shrinking, while the only flicker of growth this month turned up in a part of the country most executives long ago stopped watching. So widen your map and keep your positioning current. In an unsettled market, the executives who stay ready and stay open are the ones who get the call.
