10 facts from our latest market report

Most market reports tell you what everyone else already thinks. Ours tells you what over 10,000 candidates actually said.

That is the point of Candidata, our ongoing survey programme, combined with live vacancy data from over 12,500 roles across 19 UK sectors. No other UK recruitment technology provider publishes candidate data at this scale, and because we ask every respondent their generation, we can cut the numbers four ways: Boomer, Gen X, Gen Y and Gen Z. A single statistic becomes a genuine insight once you know exactly who it applies to.

Here are ten findings from the August 2026 edition that are worth building into how you hire.

Gen Z loyalty is falling, and falling fast

66.5% of Gen Z candidates say they are committed long term to their current organisation. Every older generation sits at 77 to 80%. This is not a small gap. It is the clearest generational break in the whole dataset, and it belongs in how you think about retention, not just recruitment.

Candidates use AI to research you, not to write for you

55.4% of candidates use AI for at least one job search task. The most common use is researching the job or the employer, at 35%. Writing applications comes a distant second, at 14%. If you assumed AI's biggest impact on your funnel was AI-written applications, the data says otherwise. It is your employer brand under quiet inspection.

Gen Z are not the heavy AI users at work you might expect

Only 4.8% of candidates use AI "a lot" in their day job. Gen Z are the least frequent heavy users of any generation, at just 3.5%. Digital native does not automatically mean AI first employee. Worth asking your own new starters how they actually use it, rather than assuming.

Job alerts beat job board search

Ranked as the number one influence on a candidate's job search, job alerts and direct messages come out ahead of job board search (24.8%) and general web search (18.8%), at 29.9%. A buried or clunky sign up form is a missed channel, not a minor detail on your careers site.

Written content still outperforms video, nearly three to one

52.7% of candidates say written content about the role and organisation is what actually convinces them to apply, against 18.5% for video. A well written job and company page earns its place before a video does, whatever the budget conversation suggests.

Except for Gen Z, where video does real work

Gen Z are almost twice as likely as Boomers to be swayed by video content, at 23.7% against 12.5%. They are also the generation least moved by a formal job description. The channel mix that works for one generation is not the channel mix that works for all of them.

Time to hire is at a five year low

Applications per vacancy roughly tripled between 2021 and 2024, then plateaued. Time to hire has kept falling anyway, now at 70.4 days, its lowest point in five years. Volume and speed are not the trade off they used to be, if the funnel behind them is built well.

Agencies are losing ground to internal mobility

Agency hires have fallen from 8.1% to 2.3% of all hires in our client data since 2021. Internal hires have risen from 12.8% to 21.4% over the same period. Employers are recruiting agencies less and promoting more, and the shift shows no sign of reversing.

The offer stage funnel shows a real fairness gap worth checking

Non-white candidates in our client data are offered roles at 18.6% of applications, nearly double the 10.3% rate for white candidates. This is an outcome rate through the funnel, not a target or a quota. It is worth checking whether your own numbers tell the same story, and checking it monthly rather than only when a report lands.

Salary decides most close-run offers, but it is not alone

When two offers are close, salary is the deciding factor 38.7% of the time. Training and development (22.0%) and flexible working (21.8%) are effectively tied for second. On average, 5.1% of candidates are lost at offer stage, but that climbs to 30.5% in Manufacturing. If your own drop off is a long way from average, that is usually a process and speed issue as much as a money one.

What to do with this

None of these ten facts are opinions. They are patterns from over 10,000 candidate voices and 12,500 tracked vacancies, and every one of them points to a specific action: how you write a job advert, how you sequence an offer conversation, where you check your funnel for fairness.

The full July 2026 Talent Insights Report goes further, with ten practical, data backed actions and a generational breakdown behind almost every number above.

Download the July 2026 Talent Insights Report to see how these ten facts apply to your own hiring.