The rise in the number of workers looking for employment increased for the first time since February 2021, driven mostly by greater confidence among job seekers and improvements in hiring conditions – particularly in both permanent and temporary staff availability.

Nursing and medical care saw the strongest growth, followed by engineering, accounting and finance.

However, the increase was also blamed on the level of redundancies in some areas such as retail, prompted by economic uncertainty.

At the same time, the rising cost of living and efforts to attract and secure suitable staff drove further increases in starting pay.