Yorkshire Job Market
The Job Market Recovery Nobody’s Telling Yorkshire About
You’ve probably heard, more than once, that the UK jobs market is falling apart. That redundancies are up, vacancies are down, and everyone is chasing the same handful of roles. It’s on the news. It’s in every LinkedIn post from someone who just lost their job in London. And if you’re sitting in Leeds, Bradford, Wakefield, York or Harrogate right now holding a redundancy letter, it’s easy to assume the same grim story applies to you.
It doesn’t. Not entirely. And nobody is telling you that.
This article covers what the latest regional hiring data actually shows about West and North Yorkshire, why the national headlines are drowning out a genuinely different local picture, what free support already exists through your local authority, and where that support runs out and a private career coach starts to matter. By the end, you’ll know whether your redundancy is a Yorkshire problem or a national one, because the answer changes what you should do next.
What the data actually shows
KPMG and REC’s UK Report on Jobs found permanent placements rising in the North of England during March 2026, at the same time permanent placements were falling in London and the South. Job posting volumes in Northern Ireland and the North East are tracking above their pre-pandemic baseline, the only two UK regions doing so. That’s not a rumour. That’s recruiters reporting what’s actually landing on their desks.
Why the national story doesn’t fit what’s happening here
Most redundancy coverage is written from a London newsroom, about a London labour market, by journalists talking to London recruiters. When 736 employers filed collective redundancy notices in the first two months of 2026, putting 56,396 jobs at risk, that number went straight into every national headline. What didn’t make the headline is where those redundancies were concentrated, and it wasn’t evenly spread across the country.
London and the South East have absorbed the sharpest hits: financial services, professional services and head-office corporate roles, the exact sectors most exposed to cost-cutting and AI-driven restructuring. Yorkshire’s economy leans differently. Manufacturing, healthcare, logistics, the public sector and a genuinely resilient SME base don’t move in lockstep with the City. When the South contracts, the North doesn’t automatically contract with it, and this cycle is a clear example of that gap widening rather than closing.
That matters for you in one very practical way. If you’re reading national redundancy advice and pricing your own prospects against a London job market, you’re working from the wrong map.
The free support that already exists in West Yorkshire
Before anyone spends a penny on private coaching, they should know what’s already funded and free. The West Yorkshire Combined Authority runs an employment support service for residents of Leeds, Bradford, Kirklees, Calderdale and Wakefield, offering CV help, job application support and redundancy guidance through local advisers. There’s also Skills Connect, a Combined Authority funded programme offering career planning sessions and, subject to eligibility, fully funded training courses up to Level 3.
If you live in West Yorkshire and haven’t contacted them yet, do that first. It costs nothing and it’s designed exactly for this situation. The National Careers Service covers North Yorkshire in the same way, offering impartial guidance and a similar route into funded training.
Where the free service ends and something else needs to start
Here’s the honest limitation, and it isn’t a criticism of the people delivering these services, who are stretched across thousands of residents with genuinely good intentions. A Combined Authority adviser working from a shared caseload can give you general guidance and point you towards funded training. What they generally can’t give you is the same depth of personal attention a private coach gives a single client: a CV rebuilt line by line for the specific roles you’re targeting, mock interviews rehearsed until the nerves settle, a LinkedIn profile that a recruiter in your sector actually stops scrolling for, and someone checking in on you every week rather than at your one scheduled appointment.
Think of it less as choosing one over the other and more as sequencing. Use the free service for what it does well: funded training routes, general guidance, and knowing your entitlements. Bring in dedicated coaching for the parts where speed and personal attention change your outcome directly, because in a market that’s actually recovering here, the difference between a mediocre application and a sharp one is often the difference between three months of searching and three weeks.
You’re job hunting in a market that’s actually moving.
Make sure your CV, your interview answers and your LinkedIn profile are ready to take advantage of it. Book a free 15-minute call and find out exactly where you stand.
Book Your Free 15-Minute CallWhat this means if you’re weighing up relocating
A specific kind of guilt shows up after redundancy in a smaller regional market: the sense that you should relocate south, chase the roles, follow the money, because that’s what ambitious people apparently do. Before you act on that instinct, look at the numbers again. Permanent placements are falling in London and the South right now. Relocating toward a shrinking market to escape a growing one is the opposite of what the data supports, and it comes with real costs beyond the obvious ones: uprooting family, losing your existing network, taking on higher living costs for a role that may not materialise any faster than one closer to home.
None of this means every sector in Yorkshire is thriving, and none of this means your search will be effortless. It means the starting assumption that “the whole country is struggling equally” is wrong, and wrong assumptions lead to wrong decisions, like relocating away from opportunity rather than towards it.
Frequently asked questions
Where to go next
If you were made redundant in the last two weeks, start with what to do before Monday. If you’re a few weeks in and thinking further ahead, what to do next after redundancy in 2026 covers the fuller process. And if notice pay and redundancy pay are still unclear, our UK notice periods guide breaks down exactly what you’re owed.
This article reflects publicly available regional labour market data current at the time of writing and is general information, not financial or legal advice. Regional job market conditions change; check current KPMG/REC UK Report on Jobs releases and your own local authority’s employment support pages for the latest position before making decisions based on this article.
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