Telegraph's top ten job sectors

I was out yesterday at the Twee As F*ck alldayer gig so I missed this piece in The Telegraph about the Top Ten job sectors to be in, and any other blogs that covered it.

Interesting enough, they get their information from Hays. Regular readers of this blog will know that I get most of my job vacancy data from reed.co.uk who are a little bit more open about the number of vacancies in each sector.

So, lets take a look at how each of The Telegraph's sectors have performed.

1. Health and social care

Doctors, healthcare workers and social workers all have good job security because of "continued high demand and pressure on social services and healthcare," recruitment company Hays says. The sector grew for the twelfth month running in June, according to Labour Market Report.

I don't really see any signs that the sector is continuously growing from the numbers on Reed, it could be that Hays have been getting a higher and higher proportion of new jobs created, but I doubt it.

Heath looks like its just bumbling along as a sector. Aye, Social care is closely tied, but then so is the public sector as a whole.

2. Education

A "severe" shortage of maths, science and head teachers makes the sector a secure employer. Construction companies involved in the Building Schools for the Future programme are also getting a boost.

I'm in the middle of trying to apply to be a maths/science teacher right now, but that UCAS form is a nightmare, and I'm not that confident of getting a job once I'm through it. It looks very much like the education sector is contracting, it was doing quite rapidly until the budget was announced in April.

Training too, that looks like an educationy sector that collapsing, the number of vacancies listed on Reed had halved since I started checking, as firms, strapped for cash, put off training up their staff.

3. Social housing

A range of skills are in demand in the sector, from accountants to builders, as well as housing officers, as the Government's improvements to social housing continue.

I'm not sure how to get social housing stats from Reed, so here are the stats for construction and accountancy as mentioned in The Telegraph, they both look like they're doing poorly. Construction less so than Accounts, but they hardly looks like

So for the next swadge of sectors covered in The Telegraph piece I don't know and can't comment, but moving on to the next area where I do have graphs and stuff...

8. Purchasing

Purchasing and procurement staff are in demand in the private and public sector, as the recession forces companies to try to improve their supply chain to protect margins.

The Telegraph doesn't really tell us anything, other than firms are having to work harder to maintain profit margins. The graph of vacancies numbers on Reed doesn't show any growth, once again, bumbling along I'd say.

10. IT

There is demand for IT architecture experts, developers, business analysts and project managers. Companies are trying to save money by speeding up access to data, sharing information and finding cheaper systems.

Sure there's probably fine detail underneath the headline numbers, but on the whole IT is a sector where employers are tightening their belts trying to get more out of their existing staff, rather than employing more people and growing their IT departments.


On the whole, by looking at a different employment service, the pictures a lot different from that portrayed by The Telegraph based on information from Hays.