UK journalism jobs data: Vacancy numbers and salaries on the up

New Press Gazette evaluation suggests of UK journalism jobs information finds the variety of vacancies and measurement of salaries paid are growing.

It’s an image that goes in opposition to the narrative of closures, lay-offs and pay-related strikes which Press Gazette has broadly coated in recent times (and many years).

Utilizing information from jobs portal Certainly.co.uk, Press Gazette checked out tendencies within the UK journalism jobs market to see who’s hiring, how a lot jobs pay and what are probably the most desired expertise.  

UK journalism jobs: Vacancies on the up 

Firstly, we used historic jobs posting information shared with Press Gazette by Certainly UK to take a look at some tendencies over time. The evaluation reveals that the uncooked variety of marketed journalism jobs elevated by 79% during the last three years; from February 2019 to final month.

Over this time the share of journalism jobs as a share of all jobs marketed on Certainly.co.uk additionally elevated, rising by 16% from 146 of each 1m job postings on the positioning to 170, suggesting that the business is even outperforming the job market as a complete in the case of the variety of openings. 

This backs up the most up-to-date information from the Workplace of Nationwide Statistics which estimates that the variety of journalists within the UK rose from 78,000 in 2018 to 96,000 in 2020 –  the best determine ever recorded within the ONS’ Labour Drive Survey, though it needs to be famous that these ONS figures have a large margin of error as a result of they’re based mostly on a pattern.

The variety of jobs, nonetheless, solely provides us a part of the image. 

For one factor the quantity of postings doesn’t converse to the standard of jobs on provide or pay, one thing these working within the business have lengthy lamented. 

To analyse the sorts of jobs on provide, Press Gazette constructed on the info shared with us from Certainly by trying intimately at stay journalism job postings.

We took all of the journalism jobs posted on Certainly on 21 February 2022 as a pattern snapshot of the business because it presently stands. Whereas job postings will after all change daily and week to week, after cleansing our dataset we had been left with 657 jobs of assorted sorts that symbolize quite a lot of roles on provide within the business.

How a lot do journalism jobs pay?

Once we seemed on the salaries for the 113 jobs in our snapshot dataset that marketed a yearly wage (taking the midpoint when a wage vary was provided), we discovered that the typical wage on provide was £35,244 a yr. 

This was considerably greater than the typical determine for journalism jobs Certainly supplied us for the final three years as a complete (£25,490), suggesting both that pay has improved or that there are presently extra senior jobs on provide. 

To place that into context, the median wage for a full-time position within the UK in accordance with the ONS was £31,461 in 2020. The determine for London – the place journalism roles have a tendency principally to be based mostly – is greater.

We additionally then seemed on the seniority of jobs on provide – which might seemingly have an effect on the typical wage. To do that, we searched sure phrases within the job description to assist decide what number of jobs marketed had been prone to be on the extra senior ranges, whereas what number of had been entry-level.

Some 44% of jobs marketed had been on the editor, assistant editor, senior reporter or different extra skilled ranges.

We then seemed for phrases corresponding to ‘intern’’, ‘entry level’ and ‘trainee’ to assist determine job ads aimed on the most junior recruits. Simply 6% of adverts contained such phrases, which can recommend a scarcity of pathways into the sphere – one thing Press Gazette has beforehand reported on.

Most UK journalism jobs are in London

A typical grievance levelled on the UK information business is its London-centricity. Aspiring journalists based mostly exterior of the capital usually must relocate to London in an effort to be the place journalism is occurring.  

Our evaluation of job postings that had been stay in February 2022 exhibits that little has modified in the case of London’s dominance over journalism jobs. Two years after the beginning of the pandemic, 48% of jobs marketed nonetheless record London as the placement. Historic information supplied to Press Gazette present that’s roughly in keeping with the development for the previous three years as a complete, as 47% of postings from February 2019 to February 2022 listed London as the placement. 

London’s share among the many sub-set of jobs that outline a geographic location (i.e. they aren’t purely distant jobs) is even greater. Of the 548 jobs that from the placement information supplied appear to demand no less than a part-time presence in an workplace, 384 are based mostly within the capital. 

Though our February 2022 information snapshot exhibits that there are some alternatives on provide throughout the nation, these are few and much between. After London, Bathtub was the second-most fashionable listed location with 12 jobs (2% of all 657 postings) situated within the south western metropolis. It was adopted by Glasgow (ten jobs – 2%) and Manchester (eight jobs – 1%). 

Some 18% of jobs listed their location as distant, whereas one other 9% stated the job would provide a hybrid working association with some days within the workplace and a few days working from dwelling. An additional 4% of job descriptions stated working from dwelling was the short-term most popular location.

Taking the info within the location area of the job advert at face worth means that lower than a 3rd of jobs (30%) supplied home-working as no less than a short lived or partial possibility.

Attain amongst these which have been busy hiring

Future, Attain and Information UK had been the employers with probably the most open postings on Certainly on 21 February.

Journal large Future had 31 jobs on provide (5% of all journalism postings), Attain had 28 (4%) and Information UK had 22 (3%). 

What expertise to employers search for when recruiting journalists within the UK?

Lastly, we analysed our snapshot dataset of 657 jobs to see a number of the extra fashionable expertise demanded. 

We seemed on the description area for every job and grouped the abilities listed based mostly on broader classes. For example, phrases corresponding to “writing skills”, “ability to write clearly” and “producing clean or accurate copy” had been bundled collectively below “writing skills”. We equally bundled collectively issues like ​​information analytics, Google analytics, Google tendencies and viewers analytics below “analytics skills”.

Popping out on high had been expertise associated to creativity with 322 (49%) of job ads mentioning phrases associated to good concepts and creativity. This was, unsurprisingly, adopted by expertise associated to writing – 319 jobs (49%). 

Different in-demand expertise associated to the flexibility to make use of and perceive newsroom analytics – 271 jobs (41%), enhancing (265 jobs – 40%) and bringing to the position record of contacts (112 jobs – 17%). Simply 23 (4%) of jobs requested numeracy within the descriptions, whereas 1% of jobs explicitly requested for “digital skills” though most jobs would have ticked off this requirement in one other approach – e.g. by asking for expertise in Google Analytics or one other particular software program.

Whereas we centered our search on the extra technical or tangible expertise required, there are after all numerous character attributes corresponding to confidence, willpower and perseverance that, whereas wanted to do many roles within the business efficiently, aren’t all the time listed in job ads. 

Image: PA Media

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