St Albans is among the toughest places to land a job in the UK, according to a recent study.

Researching the most competitive job markets across the nation, Resume analysed LinkedIn data to see which towns and cities get the most and least applicants per job.

St Albans was ranked as the sixth-hardest place in the UK to find a new job.

The city has an average of 2.88 daily applicants per job opening, behind Luton at 3.75 and ahead of Aberdeen at 2.29.

London is the most competitive job market across the country, with 11.01 daily applicants per job.

At the other end of the scale, Wallasey was found to be the least competitive at just 0.05 daily applicants per opening.

Resume's Amanda Augustine said: "While it’s no surprise to learn that London is home to the most competitive job market in the UK, I was surprised to see how sharp of a drop-off in competition there is between London and the second-most competitive town, Basildon — more than 50 per cent!

"If jobseekers wish to live in a city centre and face significantly less competition for work, I strongly recommend looking for vacancies that suit one’s needs outside of London.

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"It’s interesting to see that the least competitive industries who are also experiencing ongoing worker shortages – customer service, care and educational roles – are notorious for their ‘thankless’ roles where employees often feel overworked, underappreciated and underpaid.

“Employers in these industries that are struggling to attract top talent should re-examine their recruitment marketing efforts, as well as their corporate policies and culture, to look for areas for improvement.

"If they truly want to improve recruitment and retention rates, it begins with improving
the employee experience within their organisations."

The 20 most-competitive job markets in the UK

  1. London, 11.01
  2. Basildon, 5.32
  3. Manchester, 4.85
  4. Edinburgh, 4.48
  5. Luton, 3.75
  6. St Albans, 2.88
  7. Aberdeen, 2.29
  8. Leicester, 2.10
  9. Bebington, 2.09
  10. Farnborough, 2.04
  11. Southampton, 2.02
  12. Bristol, 2.02
  13. Cardiff, 1.79
  14. Woking, 1.72
  15. Birmingham, 1.72
  16. Halesowen, 1.68
  17. Burton-upon-Trent, 1.66
  18. Glasgow, 1.60
  19. Basingstoke, 1.57
  20. Reading, 1.54