How long does a job posting stay open? A look at the live job market

"How long does a job posting stay open?" sounds like one question, but several different measurements get used as answers. Industry averages can hide the shape of the sample, while time-to-fill includes work that happens after applications close. We measured something narrower: the age of roles an applicant could still see in our index on one date.

We took a snapshot of our live job index on 14 May 2026, covering postings from company careers pages and public job boards across several countries and applicant-tracking platforms. The analysis used the timestamp recording when we first observed each posting. A role's visible age in this article means snapshot date minus that first-observed timestamp.

This is a snapshot statistic: it measures the first-observed age of postings visible on one date, not lifecycle time-to-fill from open to close. Long-lived postings are more likely to appear in a snapshot, while our retention rule limits the oldest value we can observe. The result answers a narrower question: how old were the roles visible in this index on that date?

Headline numbers

From the 14 May 2026 snapshot:

• Median first-observed age: about 10 days
• The middle half of the sample: roughly 5 to 12 days
• Nearly nine in ten postings: first observed within the previous two weeks
• Upper end: constrained by the index's retention rule

Most of the visible sample sat between a few days and two weeks old. Months-old roles could not appear because the retention rule removes postings we have not re-observed for several weeks, so this is not evidence that long-running vacancies do not exist.

By industry

Across the industry groups with more stable samples, the median first-observed ages sat in a relatively narrow band. The table rounds the original calculation because decimal precision implies more certainty than the method supports:

The difference between the lowest and highest grouped medians was smaller than we expected. That does not prove industries hire at the same speed, because visible age is not time-to-fill and the retention rule compresses the upper end. A few narrower observations follow:

• The sample does not support assigning a universal application window to aviation, hospitality or any other sector.
• Long-running senior, specialist and academic vacancies are likely to be under-represented because of the retention ceiling and relisted URLs.
• Across the groups shown, there was no large enough difference to justify waiting longer solely because of the industry label.

Why a relatively flat curve matters for applicants

Two practical points follow from the shape of this snapshot.

First, visible age and time-to-fill answer different questions. A recruitment report may include interviewing and offer stages after applications begin, while this snapshot stops at the age of the visible advert. Neither measure should be substituted for the other.

Second, the day on which you find a role matters when the applicant queue is building. Finding a suitable role at the source and applying promptly gives it a real visibility advantage over waiting another week. This dataset does not tell us your applicant number or whether every employer reviews in order; our separate analysis of recruiter response rates looks at the relationship between application timing and replies.

Direct vs aggregated sources

In this snapshot, roles monitored from company careers pages had a median first-observed age a few days lower than roles from public job boards. The data does not tell us why: close-date policies, source mix and when we first added an employer can all affect the result. It does support checking the employer's current page when freshness matters.

What this means for aggregator-driven job search

An aggregator or digest may introduce another delay after the employer publishes a role, although the length varies and cannot be added mechanically to this snapshot. Our comparison of source and aggregator timestamps explains the measurement. The practical point survives without an invented applicant rank: finding a suitable role at the employer source before the queue or shortlist forms gives your application a real timing and visibility advantage.

Methodology and limits

Snapshot taken on 14 May 2026 from our live job index: a large set of unique postings deduplicated across direct company-page monitoring and public job boards in nine countries. Age is computed as now minus the timestamp recorded the first time we observed each posting. That timestamp is carried forward across monitoring runs, so re-runs don't reset it.

Five things to keep in mind when reading these numbers:

• Snapshot, not lifecycle. We're measuring the age of currently-visible postings, not the lifecycle (open-to-close) time-to-fill. Snapshot age slightly overestimates lifecycle age due to the inspection paradox: long-lived postings are more likely to still be alive in any given snapshot.
• Retention ceiling. Our index drops postings we haven't re-observed for several weeks. Genuinely long-lived roles are therefore under-represented, and the oldest value in the sample is a property of the index as well as the market.
• "Disappearance" is ambiguous. A role leaving our index could mean filled, withdrawn, re-categorised, or moved to a different URL. We can't distinguish these externally.
• First-observed is when we saw it, not when the employer posted it. For employers we've been monitoring for months, this is essentially the same thing. For employers we've added recently, our first-observed timestamp may post-date the role's actual publication.
• Industry segmentation uses our rule-based tag mapping, which occasionally misclassifies. We excluded industries whose tags were added or substantially expanded inside the retention window (earth sciences, energy, generic "engineering"), since their distributions are dominated by tag-rollout artefacts rather than real role churn.

What this changes in practice

The useful finding is that the grouped medians were fairly close inside this one constrained snapshot. That is not evidence that vacancies close at the same speed across industries. It is evidence against granting yourself an extra week merely because a role sits in a supposedly slow sector.

The practical decision is modest: once you've checked that a role fits, there is little reason to leave a finished application sitting for a week. Our guide to applying early covers a routine that preserves quality without manufacturing panic.

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