According to the latest UK Job Market Report from Adzuna.co.uk, while overall wage growth is improving – as those in work receive long overdue pay rises – advertised salaries are moving backwards.

Indeed, August saw the average advertised UK salary fall to £33,318, down 0.6 per cent on July and down 3.3 per cent compared to £34,417 in August 2014. 

This, the survey added, was accompanied by “spectacular levels” of cross-regional decline.

For the first time since January 2012, all areas of the UK saw advertised salaries fall on an annual basis.

London and Scotland saw the largest annual advertised salary falls of minus 5.3 per cent and 5.2 per cent respectively.

The salary slump, added Adzuna, is a result of several factors with the most significant being the recent flood of graduates entering the jobs market at entry level. A boom in lower-paid roles is also dampening average advertised salary numbers.

And while employers are rewarding their current employees with hard-earned pay rises – evident in the most recent ONS data showing strengthening average wages – this means they have less resource left for recruitment, and are unable to increase advertised salaries at the same rate.

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Andrew Hunter, co-founder of Adzuna, said: “As the summer’s heat draws to an end, advertised salaries are also cooling off. The pay packets being offered for new roles are substantially lower than this time last year, and are falling in every region across the UK.

“This national phenomenon confirms that the jobs market is starting to slow down, with an influx of entry-level and low-paid vacancies reducing average advertised salaries. The skills shortage has not benefited job hunters as might be expected.

“Counter-intuitively, it’s currently easier to climb the career ladder by staying in your current role and asking for a pay rise than by looking to move into a new position.”

Advertised vacancies grew as job openings were left unfulfilled, with 1,150,396 positions available in August, two per cent higher than July and up 27.1 per cent year-on-year.

Sunderland continued to be the hardest place to find a job with four jobseekers going after every position, making it 50 times harder to secure employment than in Cambridge

Advertised positions in tech startups attracted the most views in August as vacancies continued to increase, with music and events service Songkick (21 vacancies), social games company King.com (19 vacancies) and event finder and booking service YPlan (13 vacancies) all proving particularly popular.

The interest in tech startups coincides with a new report from Boris Johnson’s London & Partners company, which revealed London has more tech talent than anywhere else in the world.

Hunter said: “Tech start-ups continue to appeal to a variety of job hunters, with vacancies increasing as consumer demand for online services grows. The broad range of music, gaming and events services shows that the industry’s potential is phenomenal and employment opportunities in the sector will continue to climb.”

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