Time to fill (advert lifetime).
How long do adverts stay up before they come down?
At the median UK employer, a job advert stays live for 16.8 days before it comes down (n=557 employers).
Sample: 557 employers · source: UK employers' careers pages · data to 18 October 2026
By job function
| Function | Figure | Sample (employers) | In words |
|---|---|---|---|
| IT & Software | 16.6 days | 149 | IT & Software: the median employer's adverts stay live 16.6 days (n=149 employers). |
| Finance & Accounting | 16.4 days | 82 | Finance & Accounting: the median employer's adverts stay live 16.4 days (n=82 employers). |
| Engineering | 16.3 days | 133 | Engineering: the median employer's adverts stay live 16.3 days (n=133 employers). |
| Marketing | 15.9 days | 70 | Marketing: the median employer's adverts stay live 15.9 days (n=70 employers). |
| Customer Service | 15.8 days | 50 | Customer Service: the median employer's adverts stay live 15.8 days (n=50 employers). |
| HR | 15.8 days | 53 | HR: the median employer's adverts stay live 15.8 days (n=53 employers). |
| Sales | 15.4 days | 161 | Sales: the median employer's adverts stay live 15.4 days (n=161 employers). |
| Management & Executive | 14.6 days | 154 | Management & Executive: the median employer's adverts stay live 14.6 days (n=154 employers). |
| Construction & Trades | 14.1 days | 32 | Construction & Trades: the median employer's adverts stay live 14.1 days (n=32 employers). |
| Creative & Design | 14.1 days | 40 | Creative & Design: the median employer's adverts stay live 14.1 days (n=40 employers). |
| Admin & Office | 13.7 days | 78 | Admin & Office: the median employer's adverts stay live 13.7 days (n=78 employers). |
| Operations & Logistics | 13.3 days | 99 | Operations & Logistics: the median employer's adverts stay live 13.3 days (n=99 employers). |
| Other | 13.1 days | 95 | Other: the median employer's adverts stay live 13.1 days (n=95 employers). |
| Healthcare & Care | 11.6 days | 33 | Healthcare & Care: the median employer's adverts stay live 11.6 days (n=33 employers). |
By sector
| Sector | Figure | Sample (employers) | In words |
|---|---|---|---|
| Professional, scientific & technical | 20.8 days | 79 | Professional, scientific & technical: the median employer's adverts stay live 20.8 days (n=79 employers). |
| Finance & insurance | 18.7 days | 53 | Finance & insurance: the median employer's adverts stay live 18.7 days (n=53 employers). |
| Manufacturing | 17.5 days | 53 | Manufacturing: the median employer's adverts stay live 17.5 days (n=53 employers). |
| Information & communication | 17 days | 90 | Information & communication: the median employer's adverts stay live 17 days (n=90 employers). |
| Construction | 16 days | 33 | Construction: the median employer's adverts stay live 16 days (n=33 employers). |
| Wholesale & retail | 12.9 days | 52 | Wholesale & retail: the median employer's adverts stay live 12.9 days (n=52 employers). |
| Administrative & support services | 11.8 days | 40 | Administrative & support services: the median employer's adverts stay live 11.8 days (n=40 employers). |
How this is measured
Roles are titles on UK employers' own careers pages; a role advertised abroad is not filtered out (adverts are, roles are not). Roles that were reposted are left out (first_seen_at survives a repost). PROXY: median days from first_seen_at to gone_at for items that have come down. Baseline items (first seen on the page's first tracked date, i.e. already live when tracking began on 2026-08-10) are excluded because their true start is unknown. Right-censored: only adverts that have closed count, so while the tracking window is short the median is biased low. Employer-weighted: each employer's median lifetime is taken first, then the median (and p25/p75) across employers — chosen over capping adverts per employer because it needs no arbitrary choice of which adverts to keep; n = employers, value_json.adverts = closed adverts behind them.
Cite this
Free to quote with a credit and a link.
ProdReady Recruitment (2026). Time to fill (advert lifetime). Data to 18 October 2026. https://ProdReadyRecruitment.com/research/time_to_fill
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