These UK graduate jobs are shrinking fastest

Entry-level hiring for accountants, graphic designers and software engineers in the UK has fallen sharply over the past year, according to a new brief from LinkedIn and the AI & the Future of Work Unit, which found that most graduate-level roles are now in decline.

The brief, which draws on LinkedIn’s economic graph and insights from more than 40 million UK members, reports that the UK hiring rate sat at –14% year-over-year as of April 2026, with every tracked industry in decline.

According to LinkedIn, the hiring rate turned negative in late 2022 as the post-pandemic surge faded and has not recovered since.

Entry-level hiring is falling broadly in line with the wider market rather than dropping rapidly on its own, the brief states.

Averaged across industries, the entry-level trajectory closely mirrors hiring at all seniority levels, and LinkedIn said its most recent EMEA Labour Market Outlook found the same pattern, with junior and senior hiring weakening in parallel.

Beneath that headline, however, the picture varies considerably by role.

Of the 38 UK entry-level occupations above LinkedIn’s minimum hiring threshold in April 2026, 30 were declining and only 8 were growing, with more than 50 percentage points separating the strongest performer from the weakest.

The steepest declines

The data shows that the sharpest falls are concentrated in information-processing and professional roles.

Entry-level hiring for Accountants fell 29%, Graphic Designers 28%, and Software Engineers 27%.

Product Manager roles declined 24%, with further falls recorded for Data Analyst (–15%), Legal Assistant (–14%) and Data Engineer (–11%).

The strongest growth was in sales and customer-facing roles. Retail Assistant hiring rose 25%, Sales Development Representative 17%, and Business Development Representative 16%.

LinkedIn said the pattern does not follow clean sector lines. The brief notes that Sales Development Representative and Data Analyst roles are both concentrated in technology and professional services, yet the first is growing at +17% while the second is declining at –15%.

Hiring by seniority was also inconsistent across functions, according to the data. In Engineering, entry-level hiring had fallen to –19% while senior hiring sat at –10%.

In Finance, all three levels were declining at roughly the same rate. In Legal, the relationship reversed, with senior hiring (–20%) weaker than entry-level (–12%), and in Sales, entry-level hiring (–6%) was outperforming senior (–15%).

A wider skills mismatch

The brief points to a disconnect between the skills employers are seeking and those candidates offer.

Examining two declining entry-level occupations, Data Analyst and Legal Assistant, LinkedIn found zero overlap between the 10 skills employers could not fill and the 10 skills candidates most commonly offered, across all seniority levels.

Instead, the data shows that employers are seeking specific, operational capabilities such as data governance, DevOps and document preparation, while candidates more commonly offer general, analytical skills such as Python, SQL and legal research.

LinkedIn said the disconnect is not about whether candidates are skilled, but whether they are skilled in the ways employers currently demand.

The group added that many of the skills in shortage reflect capabilities typically developed through operational experience.

In occupations with a surplus of applicants, LinkedIn said this mismatch is likely to translate into a preference for more experienced candidates, making such roles harder for entry-level candidates to break into even when they are technically qualified.

LinkedIn also reported that knowledge sectors including technology, finance and professional services have remained structurally looser than sectors requiring physical presence.

As of April 2026, knowledge sectors sat at roughly 0.65–0.70 on LinkedIn’s tightness index, where 1.0 represents pre-pandemic conditions, while presence sectors such as construction, accommodation and retail remained near or above 1.0.

This means more competition per vacancy for candidates seeking knowledge-sector roles, and employers that have had what it called the luxury of selectivity for several years.

The AI question

The data shows that the steepest-falling occupations – Accountant, Graphic Designer, Software Engineer, Data Analyst and Legal Assistant – all involve processing, organising or producing structured information, and that most are roles where AI tools have become most visibly capable over the past two years.

LinkedIn said that at all seniority levels combined, these same occupations do not appear among the weakest performers, meaning the weakness is specific to the junior tier.

The data is consistent with AI having an impact on entry-level hiring in these roles, the brief states, but LinkedIn stressed this should not be considered causal evidence.

According to the researchers, these are roles in loose sectors with a wide skills mismatch, where multiple forces are at work at once, and isolating what each contributes will require more time and research.

LinkedIn cautioned that its data is not a fully representative sample of the labour market and is best used as a supplement to administrative data sources.

It added that the AI Economics Institute is being established to conduct further research into AI’s labour market impacts.

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