Published labour market reports are months out of date by the time you read them, and they average across a country and a whole sector. The live advert count in your own field, measured the same way each month, is fresher and more relevant. It just needs to be measured consistently.
Measure the same search every month
Pick one search and never change it: a specific job title, one location or radius, published in the last 30 days. Write down the result count on the first of every month. Three months in, you have a trend line for your own market that no report will give you.
The absolute number is meaningless — it depends on the board, the title and the radius. The direction is the signal.
What a rising count actually means
More adverts is not automatically good news for you.
Genuine growth looks like: more adverts, spread across many different employers, at a range of seniorities, with salaries flat or rising.
Churn looks like: more adverts, concentrated in a few employers, at one entry-level grade, republished constantly, salary static. This is a market where people are leaving, not one where jobs are being created. It is easy to get hired into and easy to regret.
A pay correction looks like: advert count flat, but published salaries drifting up, and more adverts publishing a salary at all. Employers only publish pay when they are struggling to fill roles. Rising salary transparency in your field is a genuine leading indicator that you have leverage.
What a falling count means
A falling count is more reliable than a rising one, because nobody advertises a job they do not want to fill.
Check three things before drawing conclusions. Is it seasonal — compare with the same month last year rather than last month. Is it your title only, or the whole sector — if adjacent titles are healthy, the label is going out of fashion rather than the work. And is it your location — a national fall with a stable local market is not your problem.
If the fall is real, broad and not seasonal, the response is not panic. It is widening: adjacent titles, wider radius, and a lower salary floor on your exploratory searches so you can see the whole picture.
Read the adverts, not just the count
The count tells you volume. The text tells you what is changing.
- Requirements creeping up — more years demanded, more certifications, a degree that was optional last year — means employers have their pick. Expect longer processes.
- Requirements loosening — "training provided", "no experience necessary", sign-on bonuses, relocation help — means they cannot fill the roles. That is your moment to negotiate.
- New tools appearing in adverts you have not heard of: that is your training list for the next six months, and it costs nothing to notice.
- Contract replacing permanent in your field usually means budget uncertainty rather than a permanent shift.
Three habits worth keeping
Count your one search monthly. Read ten full adverts in your field every month, even when you are not looking. Note any requirement that appears three times and that you do not have.
That is a market view built from primary evidence, in twenty minutes a month, and it is more use than any annual report about your sector.