The ten most in-demand jobs in the UK are revealed*, with nursing roles topping the list. 

As the NHS faces high turnover and low staff morale, employers are desperately trying to alleviate a widespread and persistent lack of candidates in healthcare. However, despite this and other skill shortages in the country, UK businesses are reluctant to turn to foreign workers to plug gaps. This is according to searches businesses are making through the millions of CVs of global job seekers*.

Sales and chef roles follow nurses as the most in-demand jobs in the UK 

Despite the fact that job postings are down 40% from their early-2022 peak in the UK, ever-present skill shortages remain and competition for talent is still above pre-pandemic levels. 

Against a backdrop of a struggling NHS, in the UK nurse roles accounted for a huge 6.9% of CV searches. Meanwhile, care work, particularly for the elderly or for people with a disability, feature high on the list, with support workers (2.4%) and care assistants (1.6%) also being sought out by employers. This is consistent with the UK’s ageing population, which has created significant pressure on the country’s aged care and support services. 

Sales jobs are the second most in-demand, accounting for 3.8% of CV searches, with chef jobs just behind on 3.6%. Customer service and teaching assistant roles also feature in the top ten. The inability to fill these types of roles may partly reflect the impact of the UK government’s post-Brexit immigration policy. While requirements for high-skilled workers, particularly for those outside the EU, have generally eased after Brexit, they don’t favour workers looking to take lower-paid roles, that in some cases European workers had previously taken. 

Despite skill shortages, British businesses don’t look to foreign workers to ease pressures 

While businesses can also search for talent through CVs of global job seekers, data* finds UK businesses prefer to seek out domestic workers, despite persistent skill shortages. In fact, over 9 in 10 searches by UK businesses look solely at British job seekers. 

When UK businesses do search for overseas talent they tend to focus primarily on the US, which accounts for 7.2% of searches. Despite being closer in proximity, workers in the three most searched for Eurozone countries only make up 0.9% of employer searches. 

This is in stark contrast to jobseeker interest in UK opportunities, where the share of searches conducted by foreign workers rose by 146% from a pandemic low point of 2.2% in April 2021, to 5.6% in November 2023. This indicates that the UK may have enough interested candidates globally to hire for hard-to-fill roles, but that there’s a reluctance to look outside the country for support. 

Who are UK businesses searching for? 

Jack Kennedy, Senior Economist at the global matching and hiring platform Indeed said: “The search terms used by UK businesses to review the millions of CVs on Indeed are indicative of the occupations where there are acute skills shortages that have been present for months, if not years. It’s no surprise that healthcare roles feature in the most in-demand roles, given the struggles the NHS continues to face in attracting and retaining staff. 

“These trends in employer searches are also reinforced by the UK’s post-Brexit migration policy which prioritises the higher-skilled end of the labour market. Because of this, worker shortages in lower-paid sectors are likely to remain a feature of the labour market for some time to come. 

“UK businesses who are able to may want to look at jobseekers from outside the country to fill gaps. While it’s not always straightforward to hire international talent, foreign jobseeker interest has rebounded strongly since the pandemic and turning to this wider pool may help source the right people for hard-to-fill roles.”

*Research from Indeed