Manual trades such as welding, construction and building led the way in job creation over the quarter dating August to October, according to publicly funded employment services provider Working Link.

While welding vacancies were up by 64% on the previous quarter and construction and building roles by just over a third, office-based roles have declined, most notably seeing a 60% drop in advertised roles for administrative occupations.

Artistic and literary occupations have dropped by 53%, while advertised openings for health associate professionals, managers and proprietors of other service industries, sales and cashier roles all declined by between 25-30%.

London was the region with the foremost job growth at 6%, followed by Scotland (3%) and Wales (2%), while the North-East saw 15% shrinkage in job roles, and the North-West and the Midlands also shrinking 8% and 7% respectively.

The local authorities of Inverclyde and East Renfrewshire in Scotland both saw over 100% growth in new jobs posted, and Lambeth in London registered a 58% upturn.