Job postings in Buckinghamshire between 2020 and 2022 increased by 63% (81% nationally), as recruitment difficulties and staff retention issues became more prominent during the Covid-19 recovery period.
Reasons for this included people taking early retirement, young people remaining in full-time education, a greater demand for home working flexibility and more people out-of-work due to being long term sick or looking after home or family.
Local intelligence also suggests that Brexit made it more difficult for employers to recruit EU workers to fill labour shortages. Some employers have sought to fill positions previously filled by EU workers with overseas workers from elsewhere.
In 2022, the jobs in highest demand in Buckinghamshire (according to online job postings) were care workers and home carers. Nationally, this was second only to programmers and software development professionals.
Jobs that were in higher demand locally than nationally included:
• Care and nursing roles
• Customer service roles
• Chefs, kitchen and catering roles
• Teaching and nursery roles
• Accountancy roles
• Cleaner roles
• Sales and retail assistant roles
For more information about jobs and skills, visit Buckinghamshire’s Economic Intelligence Observatory.
