With the upcoming General Election set to tackle recruitment in the NHS and the Five Year Forward View seeking to build a modern healthcare workforce, the UK healthcare sector is firmly in the spotlight.

Against this backdrop, Indeed, the world’s largest jobsite wanted to share data, which shows an industry snapshot of employment trends in the UK healthcare sector today.

January 2015

* Job seeker demand is outstripping supply

-In January there were 121,323 healthcare jobs available in the UK on Indeed, a slight increase of around 1% from January 2014. However, despite this annual increase, healthcare jobs have shrunk by 10% since Q4 of 2014 and are down 3% since December 2014

-In January, ‘NHS’ was the 3rd highest search term from job seekers across the entire healthcare sector, only behind ‘care assistant’ and ‘support worker’. A clear appetite for jobs in the NHS remains consistent

* Unfilled positions are costing the UK economy

– Despite high levels of interest from job seekers, 47% of healthcare practitioner’s jobs and 45% of healthcare support jobs remain unfilled after 30 days. This suggests a disparity between the types of jobs available and the skills needed for the roles most in demand – signalling a potential skills gap in the sector

– The potential monthly GDP represented by these unfilled positions is currently £130M, the 4th highest across 18 sectors in the UK (*source: CEBR Empty Desk report)

* London is the biggest draw

– Healthcare jobs in London receive the most interest from jobseekers by a significant margin, followed by those in Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool and Leeds

– Interestingly, more people were searching for healthcare roles anywhere within the UK in January 2014, with the ‘UK’ revealed as the second largest search location behind London. Job searches within specific cities have since become more popular, suggesting job seekers are now being more specific with their job search

* Who’s Hiring?

The job titles that came up most frequently in Healthcare job postings:

1) Support worker

2) Healthcare assistant

3) Medical receptionist

4) Pharmacy assistant

5) Dispensing assistant (dispenser)

6) Nursery nurse

7) Medical secretary

8) Optical assistant

9) Laboratory technician

* Who’s looking?

The top searches for jobs in Healthcare:

1) Support worker

2) Care Assistant

3) NHS

4) Nurse

5) Dental Nurse

6) Nursery Nurse

7) Healthcare assistant

8) Childcare

9) Hospital

10) Pharmacist

Commentary from Gerard Murnaghan, VP EMEA, Indeed:

“The healthcare industry will continue to be a major focus in the UK as we draw closer to the General Election in May. Labour in particular has committed itself to concrete recruitment numbers, pledging to hire 20,000 more nurses, 8,000 GPs, 3,000 midwives and 5,000 homecare workers.

Indeed’s data shows that there is a clear appetite from job seekers for healthcare roles with nursing as the fourth most popular search on Indeed. However there appears to be disparity between the types of jobs available, the large interest from job seekers, and the skills needed for the roles most in demand – signalling a potential skills gap in the sector. In the UK currently 80% of all nurses hired by NHS hospitals in the past six months were from overseas – in an effort for hospitals to fill this gap.

In order for the healthcare industry in the UK and specifically the NHS to function efficiently there needs to be an increased focus on employment data – on both the supply and demand side. The data can help identify current and looming shortages in talent and skills that many need increased investment in development and training.”