I keep hearing the same thing from people I talk to, on calls, in DMs, at the school gates even. Everyone applying to what feels like everything. Everyone getting nothing back. Everyone wondering if it's them.
It's not.
So I went and pulled the actual numbers, UK and Ireland, over the last three years or so. Not because I wanted to depress anyone further, but because I think it actually helps to see the shape of what's happening rather than just feel it.
The redundancy side
In the UK, planned redundancies jumped hard in 2023. Employers notified the government of around 278,000 planned redundancies that year, up 58% on the roughly 176,000 the year before. That's not a blip, that's a genuine spike.
And it didn't really stop. The trend from around 51,000 redundancies in April 2022 climbed to about 110,000 by March 2025, broadly upward the whole way. Most recent figures put UK redundancies at around 145,000 in the final quarter of 2025, a redundancy rate of 4.9 per 1,000 employees.
Ireland's picture is a bit different but points the same direction. Unemployment has been climbing steadily since 2024. In Q3 2024 there were just under 130,000 people unemployed, a rate of 4.5%. By December 2025 that had risen to 148,700 unemployed, a rate of 5.0%, up nearly 20,000 people on the same month the year before.
So more people out of work, or losing work, in both countries. That part matches what everyone's feeling.
The vacancy side
Here's where it gets properly interesting, and honestly a bit maddening if you're the one applying.
UK job vacancies hit an all-time high of around 1.3 million in April 2022. That was the "everyone's hiring, quit your job, something better will come along" era. It didn't last.
By this year, vacancies had fallen to 702,000, the lowest level outside the pandemic since 2014. That's roughly half the 2022 peak, and it's below where things sat even before Covid, when there were typically around 800,000 vacancies a month through 2019. Right now there are roughly 2.5 people unemployed for every single vacancy in the UK.
Ireland's vacancy numbers never swung quite as wildly, but the direction is the same. The job vacancy rate hit a record high of 1.6% in the first quarter of 2022, and has since settled down to around 1.3%, roughly 31,500 actual open roles, at the end of Q3 2025.
What this actually means
Put those two halves together and you get the real story. More people are losing jobs or actively looking. Fewer jobs exist to catch them.
That's not a "you're doing something wrong" problem. That's a maths problem. If there are two and a half people for every open role in the UK, most of those people are, by definition, not getting that role, no matter how good their CV is or how well they interview.
I think this is the bit that gets lost. People internalise a structural shift as a personal failing. You didn't get worse at your job. The market got smaller, and everyone's competing for the same shrinking pool at once.
Where I think this is heading
I'll be honest, nobody has a crystal ball here, and I'm not going to pretend I do either. But a few things seem worth watching.
The vacancy numbers in the UK have been falling steadily for over two years now, not spiking and recovering, just a slow, consistent drift downward. That usually means employers are being cautious rather than panicking, holding roles rather than actively cutting deep. Cautious markets tend to loosen slowly too, not snap back overnight.
Ireland looks a bit more resilient on paper, vacancy rates haven't collapsed the way the UK's have, but unemployment climbing steadily through 2025 tells me the labour market here is tightening as well, just from a different starting point.
What I don't expect is a sudden reversal. I think we're heading into a longer period where the ratio of people to roles stays uncomfortable, and where the jobs that do exist go to people who can show clear, specific value rather than just a long CV. That's not a comfortable thing to say, but I'd rather be straight with you than tell you it'll sort itself out by spring.
If anything, this is exactly the environment where how you present yourself, your CV, your interview, how you talk about what you've actually done, matters more, not less. When there's less room for error, there's less room to be vague.
If you're in the middle of this right now
You're not imagining it, and you're not failing at something everyone else has figured out. The numbers back up what you're feeling. That doesn't make it easier day to day, but it might make it a bit less personal.
If you want to talk through where you're at, I'm always happy to have that conversation. No pressure, no sales pitch, just an honest chat about your next step.