Changes to Geocoding and Volumes in the UK Postings
What is changing?
Lightcast has upgraded its location coding process to Google geocoding.
When will this change take place?
For the UK, this change will take place on February 19, 2025.
What will this change mean for me?
Total posting counts will show changes across postings history compared to prior posting volumes.
Specific estimated national annual changes are as follows for new postings:
Year | UK |
2018 | -1% |
2019 | -1% |
2020 | 1% |
2021 | -0.5% |
2022 | 1.6% |
2023 | 1% |
2024 | 1% |
Active postings will experience the same annual changes.
London locations will experience a more noticeable change—this is detailed here.
What does this mean for my analysis?
Overall posting counts have shifted, but the trends remain constant. This is primarily a technical change in processing to create a better on-going experience with Lightcast job postings.
Consistent trends: Looking at the change from a ranking/distribution standpoint, we see the same/similar rankings in occupations, skills, titles, and all other data points as we did previously.
Minimal change in overall volume for new postings: Customers should expect to see some variations in specific location counts.
More noticeable changes potential in specific analyses: In more targeted analyses, especially around locations, customers may see more significant shifts. We have seen a proportional change in all other data elements, but customers may choose to rerun some analysis as a result. This matters most in cases where the specific volume of postings is more important than trends or relative volume measures, which are more commonly used.
Why am I seeing change in numbers?
From February 14, 2025, we will be better normalising locations for the UK.
We are able to use this to be able to better match and find duplicate postings.
What is your deduplication process?
The deduplication process can be found here
What is the difference between new and active postings?
More information on this can be found here