Figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show vacancies for care workers and home carers were the most advertised jobs in the Cumberland Council area between April and June this year, making up 1.5 per cent of live adverts.

This was followed by bookkeepers, payroll managers and wages clerks (1.3 per cent) and vehicle technicians, mechanics and electricians (1.2 per cent).

Across the UK, the most advertised roles were also care worker and home carer – making up 2.3 per cent of job ads.

However, the number of these adverts has fallen by 23 per cent since 2023.

Meanwhile, adverts for HGV drivers almost doubled in the past year, while early education and childcare practitioners jumped 58 per cent.

The ONS said the level of UK job adverts has been gradually declining since late 2021 and is now similar to pre-pandemic levels at 3.4 adverts per 100 working-age people in August.

In the Cumberland council area, there were 2.4 adverts per 100 people in August – up from 1.4 in 2019, before the pandemic.

Max Mosley, senior economist at the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR), the UK’s oldest independent economic research institute, said: “While we would normally be worried about declining job adverts, this more reflects a stabilising labour market after the pandemic than anything to be too concerned about.”

He added an increase in the number of people taking early retirement, more workers resigning to upskill, high sickness absence rates, and international workers leaving the UK led to the surge in vacancies in 2021.

“This mismatch between high demand for workers and low supply led to three years of elevated job postings, as companies had to hire more aggressively to find available workers,” he continued.

“Since then, the labour market has cooled, and job postings have fallen back to reflect a more stable market.”

Despite the return to a more stable job market, a mismatch in demand and supply in the financial and wholesale sectors remains, he added.

The ONS also used data on local skills, based on individuals’ employment history, to analyse how many adverts could have been filled by people in the area.

In Cumbria, there were 10,720 job posts in 2023.

About 41.3 per cent matched the skills of at least one person in the area who was not already working in the role.