Skills England has published its latest analysis, occupations in demand, exploring the occupations most in demand across the UK labour market in 2025.
This analysis helps us to understand which employers and industries are likely to be feeling the greatest pressures to recruit and retain workers, and the level of qualification those workers are likely to need.
Used alongside other sources of evidence, the statistics can help pinpoint where investment in skills could have the greatest impact, by recognising the roles and industries where workers are most needed right now.
What 'in demand' means
This analysis is a data-driven way of measuring the level of demand for different jobs in the labour market. It identifies signs that employers are trying to recruit or retain workers, or asking existing employees to work longer hours.
We use five different measures to capture demand, including the number of online job adverts relative to the size of the workforce, and wage growth. Comparing these measures across occupations and to historic trends allows us to categorise occupations into three groups:
- Critical demand (substantially higher demand than usual)
- Elevated demand (above average demand)
- Not in high demand
Demand in 2025
This year we assessed 62 occupations as in ‘critical demand’, out of 368 occupations included in the analysis. Occupations were defined using ONS’s Standard Occupational Classification, which is a way to divide up the types of jobs in the labour market. These critical demand occupations employ over 5 million workers, or 15.4% of all workers employed in the UK.
Occupations showing the highest levels of demand include health roles such as:
- specialist medical practitioners
- medical radiographers
- senior care workers
There was also particularly high demand among digital roles such as IT business analysts, architects and systems designers.
A further 125 occupations are in elevated demand. There are almost 11 million workers, or 32.9% of all workers employed in the UK, in these occupations.
Care workers and home carers has the largest number of workers in this category, at 910k.
Demand across industries and skill levels
By grouping occupations in larger industries, we get a broader sense of where demand exists across the economy.
The industry with the largest number of people working in elevated or critical demand occupations is health and social care, with over 2.7 million workers in these occupations. This is followed by education, with 1.9m workers.
As well as the total number of workers, it’s useful to consider how this compares to the size of the industry as a whole. For example, the information and communication industry has the 6th highest number of workers in high demand occupations (1.1m), but the largest proportion of workers in high demand occupations (66.8%).
The analysis also helps us to understand the level of training required for these high-demand occupations. Over half of people, 52.3%, working in critical demand occupations are in roles that require post-compulsory education but not normally to degree level. Most commonly these were business associate professional roles, like sales, accounts and business development managers.
The impact of this analysis
The ‘Occupations in demand’ analysis helps us to understand what’s happening now in the labour market. We’ll be using it alongside other ways of understanding demand, like our forward-looking Assessment of Priority Skills to 2030, to identify where and how to invest in skills to improve growth and opportunity.
Since our first 'Occupations in demand’ publication in 2024 we have been making major improvements to the ‘occupations in demand’ methodology, building in feedback from users and our partners. The changes mean that our latest results can’t be compared with the data for 2024, but future releases will allow us to see how demand is changing across the years. This will underpin Skills England’s long-term work to assess and respond to skills needs.
Feedback
If you would like to give any feedback on the findings or methods used ahead of our next release in 2026, please complete our short feedback survey, or use the contact details below.
Email: skills.england@education.gov.uk
For attention of: Nathan Chalam-Judge
Frank Bowley
Deputy Director of Analysis and Insight, Skills England
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