This is according to the latest 'Report on Jobs' from the Recruitment & Employment Confederation (REC) and Markit.

The February data, published this morning, also reveals job vacancies continued to increase in the month. Overall demand for staff rose at its quickest rate in 18 months, with both permanent and temporary workers seeing faster increases.

However, availability of staff to fill job vacancies fell sharply in February, with permanent and short-term candidate supply deteriorating and at a greater extent than at the start of the year, particularly for permanent candidates.

Permanent placements increased across all four English regions in February. Scotland saw its first increase since September 2016, while North of England-based agencies saw the quickest increase in temp billings.

Private sector demand for staff remained substantially stronger than that for public sector staff in February, though public sector demand rose modestly for both permanent and temporary staff in February.

Demand rose for all permanent job categories in February, with strongest increases seen for engineering, IT & computing and nursing/medical/care staff, while weakest demand for permanent roles was seen in hotel & catering.

Engineering was the most in-demand category for temporary/contract staff in February, closely followed by nursing/medical/care and blue collar, while slowest growth was seen across executive/professional.