ISSUE NO. 17 · TUESDAY 25 AUGUST 2026

Graduate vacancies at a record low, valuation agents heading for 165,000 front doors, and £7.5bn of debt deciding what Morrisons does next

Graduate vacancies fell 45.6% to 8,383 in the year to July, the lowest count on record. Applicants are not the problem. Employer national insurance and the plan to scrap age-based wage bands made junior hiring the easiest cost to skip, and firms have quietly handed the work to software instead. Entry-level roles outside graduate schemes fell 8% to 192,864, which tells you this was never really a story about degrees.

Yesterday's issue ended on a Chancellor who has to choose which promise goes first. Today you can watch him looking for the money. HMRC will send valuation agents into 165,000 homes to establish which sit above the £2m mansion tax threshold, and the Treasury has reopened business rates valuations for hospitality. Meanwhile the economy rebounded and the job losses carried on regardless — the same shape as the graduate figures, one rung further up the ladder.

Below in full: why the entry-level door is shut, what a stranger in your loft is counting, and why £7.5bn of net debt decides more about Morrisons than its sales line does. After those, the numbers, today's diary, and one calculator worth five minutes.

Lead

Graduate vacancies fell 45.6% to 8,383 in the year to July, the lowest on record.

Applicants are not the constraint here; the door is. Employer national insurance and the plan to scrap age-based wage bands made junior hiring the easiest line to cut, and firms have been handing entry-level work to software instead. That combination is worse than either half alone, because cost made junior hiring expensive and automation made it optional. It runs well beyond graduate schemes: entry-level roles outside them fell 8% to 192,864. And every month of it compounds, since a year not hired is a year of experience nobody has, and the people it lands on have no job to lose and therefore no leverage to use. Whoever fixes the cost side decides what next summer's graduating year walks into. Read the full story →

The Numbers

Nothing has moved since Friday. Bank Rate is 3.75% going into the 17 September decision, CPI is still July's 2.9%, and the gilt is holding at 5.12% for August so far, 1.37 points above Bank Rate. The index below is Friday's settled close.

More News

HMRC valuation agents will be able to demand entry to 165,000 homes.

The High Value Council Tax Surcharge runs from £2,500 to £7,500 a year, takes effect in April 2028, and applies to homes worth more than £2m. To establish which ones qualify, valuation agents will be able to require entry — and refusing is not merely awkward, it is a criminal offence carrying a fine of up to £200. The net has widened before anyone has knocked on anything: 165,000 homes are now expected to be caught in the first year against an original forecast of 120,000, which is 45,000 households who were not in the plan. The levy itself is settled. What is not settled is how the state arrives at a number, and the answer involves someone in your loft counting storeys. Anyone near the threshold has until April 2028 to work out where they sit, and whether they intend to contest it or simply pay. Read the full story →

Sales are growing again. The £7.5bn sitting underneath them is what decides the outcome.

Net debt grew from £7.1bn to £7.5bn in the year to last October even as sales rose 2.8%. The grocer posted a £629m pre-tax loss and shed nearly 5,000 jobs, taking its average monthly workforce to 96,232. Lease liabilities have climbed to £2bn from £1.2bn in 2022, which is what selling freeholds actually does: it trades debt for rent, and rent never amortises. The turnaround is real and it is slow — sales up, payroll smaller, borrowing a long way down from where it started. None of that changes the arithmetic. A grocer carrying £7.5bn cannot spend like one that is not, and cutting shelf prices is the one move that does nothing at all for the number that matters. Read the full story →

On the Diary

• Today, 25 August — nothing on the economic calendar. The ONS is publishing a note on crime survey methodology and little else. The first release that moves a number lands on Thursday.
• Tomorrow, 9.30am BST — Low Carbon and Renewable Energy Economy Survey, research and development estimates. Narrow, and the only read this week on where industrial R&D money is actually going.
• Thursday, 9.30am BST — Young people not in education, employment or training. The official verdict on today's lead. If the entry-level door is shutting, this is the series that records who is standing outside it.
• Friday, 9.30am BST — Household Costs Indices for UK household groups, April to June. Inflation broken down by household type, which is the only version of the figure that tells you whose 2.9% it actually was.

The Toolbox

One tool from the site each issue, picked to fit what has just happened. Free, no sign-up, and it shows its workings.

Minimum wage calculator

"Scrapping the age-based wage bands is one of the two things that made junior hiring expensive. This shows what the bands currently pay, and what removing them would actually change."

The Close

Two of today's stories are the same transaction from opposite ends. A graduate cannot get in because employing someone at the bottom now costs more than the work is worth to the employer. A homeowner is about to find a valuation agent in the loft because the state needs the revenue that employment was supposed to generate. Both are on the table for 28 October, nine weeks out. Only one of them has a lobby group.

If something here is wrong, or there is something you want dug into, just reply. It comes straight to me.

MJB