UK Jobs Figures Due Today: Which Measures Matter to Workers?

The Office for National Statistics is scheduled to publish its UK labour-market bulletin today, 20 October 2026. Workers, jobseekers and employers will get updated official measures of employment, unemployment and earnings; the first things to check are the period covered and the separate pay-growth figures for earnings with and without bonuses. The release calendar confirms the timing, but does not provide the results.

Start with the period covered by the estimates

A bulletin published today does not necessarily describe the labour market as it stands this morning. Labour-market estimates refer to a stated period, so check the dates in the bulletin before comparing them with a current event, a recent company announcement or your own job search.

The reference period also matters when comparing this release with earlier figures. Look at whether the estimates cover the same months and whether the ONS says a figure has been revised. A new estimate and a revised estimate can change the picture for different reasons.

Employment, unemployment and pay answer different questions

The three headline areas describe related but distinct parts of the labour market:

• Employment measures people in work under the ONS definition. A change in employment indicates whether the number or share of people working has moved; it does not, on its own, explain why.
• Unemployment concerns people without a job who meet the relevant criteria for being available for and seeking work. The unemployment rate is a proportion, not a count of every person who is out of work.
• Earnings show changes in pay over the period specified. Check both the measure including bonuses and the measure excluding them, since bonuses can affect the overall rate.

These figures should not be treated as interchangeable. For example, a lower unemployment rate alone does not establish that employment rose by the same amount: the rate depends on the labour-force measure used in its denominator as well as the number unemployed.

Check both measures of earnings growth

Pay growth including bonuses can be affected by irregular or performance-related payments. The measure excluding bonuses helps readers see how the reported rate compares when those payments are left out. Neither figure, by itself, describes every worker’s pay rise or how wages compare with household costs.

Before drawing a conclusion, note the period, the earnings measure and whether the release reports annual or another form of growth. A national average can also conceal differences between sectors and groups of workers; the headline alone cannot show what happened to a particular person’s pay.

Read the ONS caveats alongside the headline figures

The ONS publishes notes on uncertainty with labour-market estimates. Read those notes before treating a small movement as a decisive change. Estimates can be revised, and the strength of a signal depends on the data and the comparison being made.

The release calendar is useful for confirming that a bulletin is scheduled, but it is not evidence of the bulletin’s findings. Once the ONS publishes the update, its bulletin is the place to verify the data period, figures, revisions and uncertainty notes. Until then, no result or trend can be inferred from the schedule alone.

Source: Office for National Statistics