What jobs are you/your employer struggling to recruit to?

[wanttoworkbut]

Just that really. There's a million comments saying getting jobs is difficult at the moment, but there must be some shortages somewhere, or at least where there are fewer good candidates. I am looking in the north, but any region of the UK welcome.

She should send letters and cvs to local firms, such as local accountancy practices, local light industry, etc. Smaller firms are less likely to use the recruitment agencies and often, especially accountancy firms, take on a trainee or two each year, and sending a cv/letter before they advertise may mean less competition.

It's what I did. Granted many, many years ago. But I wrote to 5 small accountancy practices after I saw one of them advertise for a trainee and it gave me the impetus/idea to send letters - en-spec, to the others. I got 4 interviews and 2 job offers, all for jobs that were never advertised. I know things have changed a lot in the World of employment/recruitment, but smaller firms sometimes do things the old fashioned way and as I say, are far less likely to use recruitment agencies, especially for entry level jobs.

602k business owners (mostly small) are retiring over the next few years. If I was in a position to I’d look at working in and taking over one of these often 1 -2 person companies.

Trouble is that such small businesses usually don't take on staff as they can't afford the wage required on top of their own "wage". I see it daily as an accountant. One guy, small model shop owner, was barely making minimum wage for himself, so completely impossible to employ someone, and ended up selling off his stock and giving up his shop lease - shop is still empty today, a few years later. Same with tradesmen, barely any "sole traders" have apprentices these days because of the cost/hassle/bureaucracy.

You are also talking about me as a sole trader, no staff anymore, who is about to "sell out" to a local larger firm because there's no other succession plan as I simply couldn't afford to employ a qualified accountant for a year or two in the hope they'd take over, and there's nothing in it for me, as they'd only "buy me out" for the same kind of money as the local larger firm is going to pay me!

In fact, in the last decade, I can only think of one case where a sole trader/2 person partnership has been "succeeded" by a member of staff. That was a father and son electricians business, who took on an apprentice several years ago (their neighbour's kid) who they trained, sent to college, and became a qualified electrician. By that time, the father was in his 80s, and the son was approaching 60. Father became too infirm to carry on working so retired, and the apprentice became a partner, and now the son is about to retire too, so the "apprentice" is about to take over completely. A very good outcome for him as he's got a decent electricians business, lots of repeat customers, basically given to him as neither the father nor son want anything for it as they know it's worthless to anyone else and no one else would buy it. But that's literally, one case in a decade, out of my entire client base of an average of a hundred sole trader, or 1/2 person businesses, most of whom don't employ anyone.

Perhaps it's time for the government to make it simpler/cheaper for the smallest of businesses to take on staff??

I’m really starting to see a return of jobs going to those with connections. It’s so dispiriting for the bright, hard workers who don’t have a foot in the door when Tim-nice-but-dim lands the £30k entry role as his dad is friends with the boss.

How can we hope to keep the really intelligent ones and diversify workplaces when it’s back to jobs for the boys.

Has decided she wants to go into accounting/ money management/ tax type roles

These are all professional roles though which require at least some certification but mostly unis as a started and then ACCA/CIMA etc on the top. To train someone in such role is hugely expensive. I think she's chosen the wrong field to go to without uni.

55pm allowance after April 6th 2o26

I am employ a support worker in my home 30 hours a week. £14.80 an hour none personal care. And for the past 3 years have really struggled to get any one to even apply I keep having to use a care company. That costs the government double the amount to provide. I have had one applicant in 3 years:

Totally agree that all young people should be able to borrow money for suitable endeavours if they are not going to university. Learning to drive is definitely a contender.

Agreed that a country that does not invest in its young people in training and equipping them for useful careers is a country with a death wish.

But this thread has diverged somewhat from its original point, to help those of us looking to work and depressed by the current labour market to find careers where they might be valued and retained. I have 20 years to work and don't want to be made redundant again - this was my third time most recently!

They don't understand, because they dont work a full shift in the numbers. They sit in the office, so have no idea of the reality.

Care workers and prison officers

Spot on!

The only financially independent young adult DC in my cohort of friends and family is the one who got pregnant at 16 and now lives supported mainly by benefits in a lovely new build.

Meanwhile the others are all at home or in digs.

There are quite a few studies of which jobs are most likely to be automated or replaced by AI. Make a list of the ones at the other end of the list.

The book What Colour Is Your Parachute is good for working out what types of work might appeal, to narrow it down.

Salaries are a joke for some of these ‘unfillable’ roles. I regularly see social care service manager type roles asking for a social work qualification, years of experience at senior level and for a job that is highly responsible, involves managing high levels of risk, unsociable hours…for circa 35k. In London. Who the fuck is going to do that?

£32,000 - £39,000 is "crap money."

Really ?

Depends on your outgoings and other options, doesn't it?

We struggle to recruit in general because our roles are hybrid and require 60% of the time in the office. We’re a national company but based outside of a big city so that means recruitment is limited to those in the area or within about an hour’s commute.

We’ve got some vacancies which have been open for nearly a year as we’ve not been able to attract people with the right qualifications. We’ve offered jobs to people who at the point of offer then ask if they can be fully remote - which due to the type of work we do, isn’t practical. So from my perspective, we’ve got lots of jobs available with decent (properly benchmarked) salaries but people seem to want home based working.

Puzzled by this. Social work managers in London Local Authorities are on around £55k. It’s still a lot of responsibility for this salary.

I'm a secretary for a land surveying company and we find it very tough to recruit. We are not even seeking chartered surveyors we are just struggling to find applicants with a good work ethic and who can work independently or as part of a team.

Yes - shite. Every B5 I know (many) is skint.

I suppose it depends what part of the country you live in.

In Lincolnshire that's a good salary. but maybe not in London ?

Yes if you’re not eligible for benefits and are paying rent plus utilities, council tax, food, commuting, etc. There’s nothing left. My son is in that position - rent alone for a tiny flat is £1k per month - all that was available due to high demand and low supply in his work city which is a uni city and tourist hotspot. The only alternative was a crap house share for £900 per month for a dingy basement bedroom and shared kitchen/ bathroom in a crap house that looked like it needed condemning! Housing costs are insane in some places. I can see why some people pop out a sprog to open the gates to benefits!

What this thread tells me is that, for some "knowledge work"/white-collar-ish jobs, there is possibly a sort of gap between employers and candidates - economists might call it a market inefficiency.

Two examples just on this page - the national company which is outside a big city and requires 60% in-person and the land surveying company. So - taking wages out of the equation for a minute - for example, I would very happily work in-person in the office in another location not my own city and would stay overnight. But I have no idea where that vacancy is or what the company is looking for, or how to find it. (I could ask the PP but I am making a general point here).

The low wages and poor conditions in some sectors is shocking, I totally agree. I'm completely horrified by the example of "one uniform top per care worker and if you want more you have to buy it yourself". Care workers are dealing with incontinence and other sorts of bodily fluids!!

There are some jobs which should get paid (much better) and people find it hard to live on the wages. This is one very important reason why these co's are not finding the people they need.
There are other jobs which are harder to recruit to because the pool of candidates is smaller. In this category there needs to be a better way to match candidates and employers. We also need to remove barriers to entry (like the Maths GCSE for social workers further up the thread.)

What sort of technical? Also what qualification do you need for Home Ec? Does 44 years of actual experience count?

I agree. I also think that considering the huge cost to the country of so many people going to Uni and getting loans that many will never repay, we should make more of an effort to "match" university courses with the future jobs market and also to "bake in" professional qualifications to the university course.

I remember at one open day with our DS attending an accountancy course subject talk, where most of the people were visibly shocked when the lecturer pointed out that an accountancy degree didn't make someone an accountant and that they'd still have to get a workplace training contract and do 2/3/4 years of professional exams before they'd qualify as an accountant. We knew, because I'm an accountant, but several shocked people asked the lecturer to confirm what he'd just said! All he could offer was that "some" of the professional exams may be avoided by the graduate claiming an exemption due to modules taken, but he was very vague on the detail. One astute person asked why the Uni wasn't working with the chartered body to get the modules accredited for automatic exemption, to which he had no answer. At other Unis, the had arranged such an accreditation! Why is it not universal?

In my DS's case, same thing, he graduated and joined a big insurance/pension firms as a trainee actuary, but he had to jump through hurdles to get the actuarial professional faculty to grant him a couple of exemptions out of 13 professional exams, for which his Uni were no help at all. He spent, literally, days, doing his own "mapping" of the content of his modules against the very detailed specs of the actuarial exams, having to attach screenshots/extracts of the Uni module course notes to each section of the spec. He thought he might have been eligible for exemption from a couple more, but struggled to match the specs exactly so didn't want to risk the time and cost of applying. Repeat that for all the other graduates applying for exemptions from all kinds of different professional bodies.

Unis should be more attuned to work life. If they're offering courses in say, accountancy or actuarial science, then their courses should be "mapped" to the professional bodies requirements for easier exemption claiming, or even better, they should be working with the relevant professional body to get their courses accredited for automatic exemption. Also provide modules that are aimed to match the professional exams.

It all still seems to be academic for the sake of academia rather than training/ educating people for the workplace. That may have been fine decades ago when it was the minority of highest academically able people going to Uni, but these days, it's become a basic requirement to get a decent job to have a degree, so Unis need to change to be more career-focussed in what and how they teach.

They should also be offering non degree courses, i.e. the professional accountancy exam courses to those not taking a degree. It's what the polytechnics and larger local FE colleges used to do, i.e. evening classes, day release, etc., for workers wanting to do professional exams alongside work. But our local Uni does absolutely nothing like that, despite converting itself from being a Poly - it just stopped all the vocational/professional courses it offered and became a wholly "degree only" Uni.