Adzuna insights - how the world of work is evolving

With the call for expressions of interest currently open until Monday 29 July, Dr. Sam Grant, Research Associate at UBDC, highlights ways the Adzuna dataset can deliver fresh insights into economic and labour market trends:

The Adzuna dataset offers a rare opportunity for researchers to explore trends in the UK labour market through a large-scale, high-frequency dataset. Comprising over 350 million job advertisements collected through weekly snapshots of Adzuna.co.uk, the UK’s most popular job search engine, this dataset provides detailed insights into how the world of work is evolving.

Data is available at the advert-week level between 1 April 2016 and 31 December 2023. With adverts assigned a longitudinal ID, users can track the duration of job postings over this period.

A novel component of these data is the inclusion of job descriptions, which contains rich textual information on job skills, tasks, benefits, education and experience requirements, and other dynamic aspects of the labour market that may not be reflected in official statistics.

Additionally, Adzuna have provided a number of derived variables, including job title, salary information, skill requirements, occupation and sector classification codes (SOC and SIC), a range of location identifiers, seniority estimates and a company ID.

Examples of research using Adzuna

Darby, McIntyre and Roy (2022) explore the persistence of home working offerings in the post pandemic labour market. They show that such opportunities remain highly concentrated towards the top end of salary distribution and within a limited number of job categories (e.g. IT and accounting and finance).

Darby, McIntyre and Roy (2023) shed new light on recruitment strategies used within the Adult Social Care, a sector with long standing labour shortages. They show that signing bonuses were ineffective in alleviating acute shortages, as were salary offering that eclipsed the UKGovernment visa threshold. The researchers conclude by emphasising theimportance of improving basic pay and contracted hours to alleviate shortagesin this sector.

Grant, McIntyre and Roy (forthcoming) combine text-mining with natural language processing methods to explore the use of gendered language within Adzuna. They find that the marginal masculine-coded word is associated with a wage premium, even within the same occupation, sector ands eniority of role. No association was found with feminine-coded words.

Potential research questions using Adzuna

·     What sectors or occupations are growing in theUK labour market?

·     Is there regional variation in the rise of green or AI related jobs? What impacts do these have on the UK labour market?

·     What effect does labour market tightness have on wages?

·     What new skills are being demanded in the UK labour market?

References

Darby, J., McIntyre, S.,& Roy, G. (2022). What can analysis of 47 million job advertisements tell us about how opportunities for home working are evolving in the United Kingdom?. Industrial Relations Journal, 53(4), 281-302.

Darby, J., Roy, G., &McIntyre, S. (2023). The sticking plasters aren't working: the ongoing UK workforce crisis in adult social care, new evidence from an expansive database of job adverts.

Apply to access to Adzuna data here.