More candidates than ever. Still can’t fill the role. Cadidate availability has now risen for 41 consecutive months. On paper, hiring should be easy.
Ask anyone recruiting a pricing actuary, a cyber specialist, or a solicitor at the right PQE, and you’ll get a different answer. The applications arrive. The right applications don’t.
This isn’t a contradiction, and it isn’t bad luck. It’s what a candidate-rich market looks like when the shortage was never about volume in the first place.
What July’s data showed
From the KPMG and REC UK Report on Jobs (July 2026 data):
Candidate availability rose for a 41st consecutive month
Permanent placements reached 50.0 (the no-change mark) and the first month without decline since October 2022
London recorded permanent hiring close to a four-year high
Starting salaries rose at their fastest rate in six months, sharpest in London
Temporary vacancies rose for the first time in two years
Total vacancies fell at their slowest rate in 22 months
The ONS put UK vacancies at around 712,000, unemployment at 4.9% and annual earnings growth at 4.3% - roughly 2.5 unemployed people for every vacancy.
Why a bigger candidate pool hasn’t made specialist hiring easier
Availability figures count everyone who is looking. A shortlist counts something much narrower: people with the right specialism, at the right level, who are genuinely open to moving and not already two stages into someone else’s process.
Between those two numbers, the pool narrows sharply (and in the specialisms that stayed scarce right through the downturn, it barely widened at all). Actuarial and pricing. Underwriting, AI and machine learning. Cyber. Solicitors at the PQE levels everyone wants.
The pay data confirms it. Starting salaries rising at a six-month high, in a market with 41 months of growing availability, only makes sense if employers are competing hard for a small group of people.
Where roles are stalling now
The pressure point has moved. Getting to a shortlist has become easier over the past year. Getting to a signed offer has not.
Pay is being repriced quietly, which catches out salary bands set eighteen months ago. Counter-offers have returned, particularly in legal, as employers who have struggled to hire work harder to keep the people they have. And where two employers want the same scarce candidate, the slower process usually loses without ever knowing it was in a race.
The August report looks at that window between final interview and signature in detail and at what separates briefs that get filled from briefs that quietly stall.
Inside the August report
Why candidate availability and hard-to-fill roles are the same market seen at different resolutions
The specialisms where scarcity hasn’t eased at all across insurance, technology and legal
What’s happening at the offer stage, and why it’s now the most common point of failure
A four-part framework for briefing a role in this market - the range, the non-negotiables, the decision route and the trade-off
What London’s near four-year high in permanent hiring signals for the rest of the year
Ten pages of useful insights, written for people hiring specialists rather than watching the market.
Who it’s for
Hiring managers, HR and talent teams are recruiting across insurance and insurtech, technology and change and legal.
Get the report (no email required)
If you have a role in mind for the autumn, get in touch - we’ll give you a straight view of what it pays now, how deep the genuine pool is, and how contested it’s likely to be.
+44 (0) 1892 553355 | info@gerrardwhite.com
FAQs
Why is it still hard to hire specialists when candidate availability is rising?
Candidate availability measures everyone looking for work. Specialist roles draw from a much smaller pool - the right specialism, the right level, genuinely available. In areas like actuarial, underwriting, AI and cyber, that pool has barely widened, which is why starting salaries rose at a six-month high in July 2026 despite 41 months of rising availability.
Are counter-offers increasing in the UK job market?
Yes, they have been reported more frequently through 2026, particularly in legal. Employers who have found hiring difficult are working harder to retain existing staff, so a counter-offer is best treated as a likely stage in the process rather than a surprise.
Is permanent hiring recovering in London?
London recorded permanent hiring close to a four-year high in July 2026, ahead of the national picture, where permanent placements only reached the no-change mark of 50.0.
How should I set the salary for a specialist role in 2026?
Benchmark against what comparable roles are paying now in your region rather than what the role paid when last hired. July 2026 saw starting salaries rise at their fastest rate in six months, so bands set in 2024 or early 2025 are likely to sit below the current market for scarce skills.
