Engineering Unemployment in 2026: Demand Holds Up While Graduates Face a Tougher Start
UK unemployment is 4.7% and vacancies are falling, yet engineering is one of the few areas where employers are still hiring. Here is what the figures mean for graduates.
Engineering unemployment is a question many graduates are asking this autumn. The wider UK jobs market has cooled, with fewer vacancies than a year ago, but engineering keeps showing up near the top of the lists of sectors that are still hiring. This article pulls together the latest official and industry figures and explains what they mean if you are trying to land your first engineering role.
The Big Picture: UK Unemployment in Autumn 2026
The UK unemployment rate was 4.7% in June to August 2026, down 0.1 percentage points on the quarter, according to the ONS Labour market overview for October 2026. Vacancies fell by 21,000 to 691,000 in July to September 2026, and there were 2.4 unemployed people for every vacancy. The ONS says vacancies fell in 14 of the 18 industry sectors compared with the previous quarter, and that professional, scientific and technical activities, which include engineering consultancy, had the largest fall over the year, down 9,000 (ONS Vacancies and jobs in the UK, October 2026).
A quick note on the data. The Office for National Statistics does not publish a monthly unemployment rate for each industry, so to judge how a sector is doing we look at the official vacancy figures alongside hiring surveys and graduate job data from named sources. Every figure below links to where it came from.
Engineering Is Still Hiring
Against that background, engineering looks comparatively strong. The KPMG and REC UK Report on Jobs for September 2026 found that IT and computing and engineering led the sectors reporting higher demand for permanent staff, and the permanent placements index reached its strongest reading in four years. A month earlier, the July report said temp vacancies were led by blue-collar and engineering roles (KPMG and REC, August 2026).
Looking ahead, the Vacancysoft and APSCo engineering sector trends report (July 2026) forecasts engineering vacancies to rise by 11.2% in 2026, driven by investment in electricity networks, clean energy, defence, transport and advanced manufacturing. Our earlier article on the engineering vacancies forecast covers that report in more detail.
A Skills Gap, Not a Shortage of Jobs
Employers are not short of work. They are short of people with the right skills. Enginuity estimates the engineering and manufacturing skills gap costs UK firms £5.2bn a year. That gap is real, but it mostly rewards people who can show practical, job-ready skills, which is exactly where many new graduates struggle.
What This Means for Engineering Graduates
The graduate market is harder than the engineering headlines suggest. Indeed reported in August 2026 that graduate job openings were down around 7% on the previous year and entry-level vacancies were at their lowest level since 2020 (FashionUnited, reporting Indeed data). High Fliers found graduate recruitment at the UK’s top employers fell 5.1% in 2025 and has dropped 24.5% since 2022 (High Fliers Graduate Market report). The Institute of Student Employers is a little more positive, reporting a 4% rise in graduate hiring in the 2025/26 cycle after an 8% fall the year before, but with more than 1.7 million applications for 31,577 hires (HR Grapevine, reporting ISE data).
So there are engineering jobs, but each one attracts more applicants. The graduates who get interviews are the ones whose CVs show what they have built, tested, designed or fixed, not just the modules they passed. Our guide to engineering graduate jobs has seven practical ways to get started.
Start With a Free CV Check
When competition for each job is tighter, small CV problems cost more interviews. Our free CV check gives you a score and practical feedback on structure, content and how well an applicant tracking system can read your CV. It costs nothing, takes a couple of minutes and you do not need a subscription to use it.
For engineering graduates, the feedback often points to the same fix: move your final-year project, placement and any hands-on work to the top, and describe the result, not just the task. A line such as “designed and tested a test rig that cut set-up time” says far more than “assisted with testing”.
Once your CV is in shape, our CV Job Matcher can search a large UK job feed for engineering jobs that fit your skills and location, and suggest roles you could move into with the experience you already have.
Coming Soon: A Work Diary App to Help Graduates Build Stronger CVs
We are building a new app with graduates and early-career jobseekers in mind. The hardest part of a first CV is remembering, and proving, what you have actually done. The app will let you log your daily tasks as you go, whether that is a placement, a project, a part-time job or your first graduate role, so the detail is captured while it is fresh. For an engineering graduate, that could be the drawings you produced, the tests you ran, the site visits you joined and the software you learned, each logged on the day it happened.
It will also keep your certificates in one place. When you apply for a job, the app will use your whole work diary to build a CV tailored to that role, drawing on everything you have done rather than what you happen to remember on the day.
Over time, a steady record like this is designed to help you write a stronger CV, show real progress to employers and widen the range of jobs you can apply for with confidence. No app can promise a particular job, but a better evidence base gives you a better chance at every application. The app is still in development and is not available yet. We will share news on this blog when it launches.
Where to Look for Engineering Jobs Now
Focus on the areas the forecasts point to: power and electricity networks, clean energy, defence, transport and advanced manufacturing. Apprenticeships and graduate schemes in these areas are worth applying for even if they were not on your original list. Visit our engineering recruitment hub, read our guide to engineering career progression, or browse our vacancies page.
Sources
All figures in this article come from these sources, checked on 22 October 2026:
- ONS, Labour market overview, UK: October 2026
- ONS, Vacancies and jobs in the UK: October 2026
- KPMG and REC UK Report on Jobs, September 2026 (via Onrec)
- KPMG and REC UK Report on Jobs, August 2026
- Vacancysoft and APSCo, Engineering Sector Trends, July 2026
- Enginuity, Mind the Gap
- Indeed graduate data (via FashionUnited), August 2026
- High Fliers, The Graduate Market
- ISE Student Recruitment Survey (via HR Grapevine), October 2026
Engineering Unemployment: Frequently Asked Questions
Is engineering unemployment rising in the UK?
The ONS does not publish a monthly unemployment rate for engineering. Overall UK unemployment was 4.7% in June to August 2026, and recruitment surveys show engineering is one of the sectors where demand for permanent staff is still growing.
Are there engineering jobs for graduates in 2026?
Yes, but there is more competition for each one. Graduate openings are down overall, so a CV that shows practical project and placement work makes a real difference.
Which areas of engineering are hiring most?
Industry forecasts point to electricity networks, clean energy, defence, transport and advanced manufacturing.
What is the new Bernoullis work diary app?
It is an app we are building, aimed especially at graduates. It will let you log your daily tasks, store your certificates and turn your whole work diary into a CV tailored to the job you want. It is designed to help you build a stronger CV over time. It is still in development and not available yet.
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