Data
The skills UK adverts ask for, by role
Not a survey and not an opinion: the skills live UK adverts name, counted role by role, with the date they were read.
30,552 live adverts, read 24 October 2026
Which skills do UK adverts ask for most, by role?
The 20 roles with the most live UK adverts, each with the eight skills its adverts name most and the share of the role's adverts naming each. Counted from 30,552 live adverts, read 24 October 2026.
| Role | Live adverts | Skills named most (share of the role's adverts) |
|---|---|---|
| Social Worker | 1,222 | Social Work England registration 93%Care planning 50%Child protection (statutory) 40%Local government 22%Care Act 2014 22%Mental Capacity Act and DoLS 19%Person-centred care 18%Strengths-based practice 18% |
| Software Engineer | 847 | Python 51%AWS 36%CI/CD 34%TypeScript 31%Kubernetes 29%Java 25%React 25%C++ 22% |
| Product Manager | 406 | Product Management 100%Product strategy and roadmap 52%Agile 17%Stakeholder Management 16%Generative AI 14%User research 13%SQL 9%A/B testing 8% |
| Account Manager | 367 | Account management 60%CRM systems 32%Forecasting 26%Upselling and cross-selling 25%Negotiation 22%New business sales 21%Business development 18%Salesforce 17% |
| Sales Executive | 336 | CRM systems 34%Customer service 29%Field sales 29%Business development 28%New business sales 24%Prospecting and cold calling 24%Sales cycle, prospect to close 22%Sales targets 18% |
| Project Manager | 296 | Project Management 98%Stakeholder Management 33%Agile 22%PRINCE2 20%Forecasting 18%Risk Management 18%PMP 17%Supply chain management 17% |
| Occupational Therapist | 295 | HCPC registration 89%Adult social care 46%Person-centred care 34%Moving and handling (people) 24%Care Act 2014 20%Strengths-based practice 20%Local government 20%Reablement 20% |
| Marketing Manager | 279 | Marketing campaigns 31%CRM systems 29%Digital marketing 22%Social media 19%Project Management 18%Content creation 18%Marketing strategy 18%Marketing automation 16% |
| Administrator | 271 | Microsoft Office 62%Excel 54%Customer service 38%General administration 34%Correspondence and proofreading 13%Filing and document management 12%Office management 10%Purchase orders 10% |
| Retail Assistant | 229 | Retail sales 97%Customer service 65%Shop floor and sales floor 52%Sales targets 36%Store presentation 27%Merchandising 10%Retail 10%Stock control 10% |
| Nursery Assistant | 220 | Early years 100%EYFS (Early Years Foundation Stage) 84%Early years Level 3 qualification (full and relevant) 75%Nursery practitioner 44%Play-based learning 30%Personal care 26%Teaching assistant (TA/LSA) 7%Record keeping 5% |
| Cleaner | 207 | Commercial and domestic cleaning 73%Hoovering, mopping and dusting 33%COSHH 21%Toilet and washroom cleaning 20%Customer service 18%Housekeeping (hotels) 17%Put-away and replenishment 10%Store key holding 10% |
| Nursery Practitioner | 192 | Early years 90%EYFS (Early Years Foundation Stage) 77%Nursery practitioner 46%Early years Level 3 qualification (full and relevant) 32%Personal care 24%Play-based learning 19%COSHH 8%Food hygiene and safety 7% |
| Machine Learning Engineer | 184 | Machine Learning 95%Python 73%PyTorch 55%Generative AI 45%AWS 38%TensorFlow 33%Docker 31%Kubernetes 31% |
| Cyber Security | 180 | Cyber Security 63%Threat Modelling 41%AWS 40%Incident Response 37%ISO 27001 36%Python 34%CI/CD 30%Identity & Access Management 30% |
| Care Assistant | 177 | Care and support work 82%Medication administration 47%Personal care 41%Care Certificate 29%Care planning 27%Local government 23%Dementia care 21%Person-centred care 21% |
| Support Worker | 168 | Care and support work 86%Person-centred care 39%Personal care 38%Medication administration 36%Complex needs 20%Care planning 19%Learning disabilities 18%Mental health 15% |
| Accountant | 159 | ACA (ICAEW) 60%ACCA 60%Excel 56%Financial reporting 56%Month-end close 45%CIMA 42%Balance sheet 40%Financial controls 36% |
| Design Engineer | 159 | Electrical engineering 27%Supply chain management 18%Python 17%Mechanical engineering 13%Water industry 13%CDM Regulations 11%Reading technical drawings 11%SolidWorks 11% |
| Data Scientist | 154 | Python 90%Machine Learning 64%SQL 62%Statistical analysis 29%Generative AI 29%Experiment design 23%A/B testing 21%AWS 21% |
How are these figures counted?
A live advert is one still listed when Fitread read it: a UK job from a jobs-board feed, or a UK job on an employer's own hiring system that Fitread reads directly. An advert joins a role when its title carries one of the role's title phrases, the same rule Fitread's role pages use, so an advert can belong to two roles and a "Senior Data Engineer" counts for Data Engineer.
Skills are the ones Fitread's extractor found in each advert, with one vocabulary of skills and their aliases (Kubernetes and K8s are one skill). Security clearances and cards are eligibility, not skill, and are left out. A share is the number of the role's adverts naming the skill divided by all the role's live adverts, so an advert that names no skill Fitread recognises still counts in the denominator. Nothing is weighted, sampled or estimated.
The count is read once a day and the date is printed beside it. A role with fewer than 20 live adverts is not shown.
How many adverts state pay or a working pattern?
Of the same 30,552 live adverts, 5% state a day rate or a salary figure and 43% state whether the work is remote, hybrid or on site. The rest leave it out, and Fitread shows a missing figure as missing rather than guess it.
How do you use this for your CV?
Find your role, and check that the skills you genuinely have from its list are in your CV in those words. That is most of the work of tailoring, done once. Should you tailor your CV to every job? works through the arithmetic, and how to match your CV to live UK jobs explains the score the skills feed into.
Then read your CV against a real advert: Job Match ranks the live adverts by your CV, one reading with Read my CV is free and needs no account, and Tailor my CV suggests wording for the gaps from your own CV.
Questions people ask
From live UK adverts Fitread reads on employers' own hiring systems and, where one is on, a UK jobs-board feed. Each advert's skills are extracted by Fitread's own code with one vocabulary, and the count is read daily and dated.
The number of the role's live adverts that name the skill, divided by all the role's live adverts. Nothing is weighted or estimated.
The table shows up to 20 roles, those with the most live adverts, and a role needs at least 20 live adverts to appear. A reading of your CV against an advert for your role shows its own skills.
No. Security clearances and cards are eligibility, left out of the skill counts and shown on a reading as facts, never as points.
See it on your own CV
Upload your CV, choose an advert and see your match score. No account needed for the score.
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