10,010 candidate voices.
12,500 tracked vacancies.
19 UK sectors.
One question: what is actually happening in UK hiring right now?
This report answers it with data rather than opinion, cut generation by generation and benchmarked sector by sector. Download it for free below.
The July 2026 edition of the Jobtrain Talent Insights Report covers the first half of 2026. Behind every trend line sits five years of proprietary Jobtrain data, so you are seeing genuine movement rather than a single quarter mistaken for a pattern.
What you'll get:
Candidata is Jobtrain's ongoing candidate survey programme, combined with live vacancy data from the Jobtrain platform to form a single view of the UK hiring market. It is the only dataset of its kind and scale in UK recruitment.
Because Candidata asks every respondent their generation from the outset, every finding in the report can be cut four ways: Boomer, Gen X, Gen Y and Gen Z. That is the difference between knowing that a proportion of candidates value something, and knowing exactly which generation, in which sector, at which stage of your funnel.
The report is produced by Jobtrain's Talent Intelligence Unit, led by Gary Towers (Director of Talent Intelligence), whose team benchmarks client recruitment funnels against Candidata sector data, designs the changes and measures whether they worked.
Three findings stand out, because each one cuts against an assumption most employers are currently working to.
The first is AI. Only 4.8% of respondents use AI "a lot" in their day job, and Gen Z are the least frequent heavy users of any generation at 3.5%. Digital native does not mean AI-first, and if your hiring strategy assumes otherwise it rests on a premise the data does not support.
The second is content. Written material about the role and the organisation convinces nearly three times more candidates to apply than video does. The job description and the company page still earn their place before the video budget does.
The third is discovery. Job alerts and direct messages are candidates' number one ranked influence on their job search, ahead of both job board search and general web search. A buried or clunky sign-up form is a missed channel, not a minor design detail.
Download the full report for the complete findings, the five-year trend lines, the sector benchmarks and the ten actions that come out of them.
UK vacancies fell to 712,000 between April and June 2026, the lowest level since early 2021, with 2.5 unemployed people for every vacancy and unemployment at 4.9%. Despite the volume of applicants, time-to-hire across Jobtrain's client base is at its fastest in five years.
It varies enormously by sector. In Jobtrain client data for the first half of 2026, Leisure and Hospitality vacancies attracted more than 150 applications each, while schools averaged around 15. Applications per vacancy have roughly plateaued since 2025, after tripling between 2021 and 2024.
No. Jobtrain's Candidata research found that only 4.8% of respondents use AI "a lot" in their day job, and Gen Z were the least frequent heavy users of any generation at 3.5%. More than half use AI somewhere in their job search, most often to research an employer rather than to write applications.
Written content about the role and the organisation is the single biggest influence, convincing nearly three times more candidates than video does. Gen Z are the most receptive to video of any generation and the least swayed by a formal job description, but written content still leads across every age group.
Over 1.01 million 16 to 24 year olds are now not in education, employment or training, the first time that figure has passed a million since 2013. Youth unemployment sits at 16.2%, more than three times the all-age rate, and there are now more NEET young people than unfilled UK vacancies.
The report covers the UK labour market and pay picture for 2026, the candidate voice split by generation, five years of hiring funnel benchmarks by sector, what the outcomes data shows on diversity and inclusion, and ten practical actions for recruiters and TA leaders.
It is written for HR Directors, Heads of Resourcing, talent acquisition leaders and HR business partners in UK and Ireland organisations. The data spans 19 sectors across public, private and third sector employers, so the benchmarks apply regardless of size or sector.
We're a UK-based, AI-powered applicant tracking system trusted by 200+ organisations, with over 25 years of experience in recruitment technology. Our platform helps talent acquisition teams attract, assess and onboard the right people, more efficiently, more consistently and with a better experience for every candidate.