When we first shared what we had learnt from 300 local vacancies on Reddit, the response showed us that people in Brighton wanted more than generic job-search advice. They wanted to know what was actually happening here: when jobs appear, which roles attract the most interest, which employers keep hiring and how quickly people need to apply.
Brighton PartTimer has now tracked 1,016 part-time jobs from 145 employers and directed candidates towards employer application routes 12,617 times.
That gives us a view of Brighton and Hove's part-time market that is difficult to get from a national job board. Every figure below comes from vacancies local people saw on Brighton PartTimer and the way candidates responded to them.
The clearest lesson is that there are plenty of opportunities, but the best time to discover a job is often not the time most people are searching.
The Brighton picture in a minute
- Tuesday was the busiest day for new vacancies.
- Around half of new jobs landed between 12:00 and 17:59.
- August brought 50% more jobs than July.
- Nearly 42% of vacancies we could time disappeared within seven days.
- Retail sales and shop-floor roles made up 15.4% of jobs but attracted 30.6% of candidate interest.
- The three most popular role families attracted 54.1% of candidate interest from only 29.6% of vacancies.
- Nearly three in four vacancies were posted with an hourly rate.
These are Brighton PartTimer's own local figures, not national estimates.
The best time to catch a fresh vacancy
More than 50% of new vacancies landed during the afternoon. Local candidates were most active then too, but plenty continued searching well into the evening.
| Time | Share of new jobs | Share of candidate activity |
|---|---|---|
| 06:00 to 11:59 | 23.4% | 16.8% |
| 12:00 to 17:59 | 50.2% | 43.9% |
| 18:00 to 23:59 | 20.4% | 31.2% |
| 00:00 to 05:59 | 6.0% | 8.1% |
The afternoon is the strongest overlap, but there is an even more useful detail hiding inside it. From 12:00 to 14:59, around one third of new jobs arrived while only about one fifth of candidate activity took place.
That looks like the best opening for an early application. New vacancies are arriving quickly, but the larger afternoon and evening crowd has not yet fully built up.
After 18:00, the balance changes. Nearly a third of candidate activity happens during the evening, while only around a fifth of jobs arrive then. In other words, many people are looking at night for vacancies that may have appeared several hours earlier.
The weekday pattern tells a similar story:
- Tuesday produced 19.6% of new jobs and 17.5% of candidate activity.
- Saturday and Sunday produced only 13.1% of new jobs, but attracted 21.5% of candidate activity.
The weekend is popular for job hunting, but relatively quiet for new vacancies. Someone waiting until Saturday may be looking at the same advert as a larger crowd, after weekday applicants have already reached the employer.
If you can, check Brighton PartTimer on Monday and Tuesday, especially around lunchtime and during the afternoon. A quick daily visit puts you in a better position than saving the whole search for the weekend.
August was the busiest full month
May was Brighton PartTimer's launch month, so the fairer comparison starts in June:
- July brought 9.4% fewer jobs than June.
- August then jumped sharply, bringing 50% more jobs than July and 35.9% more than June.
- Our September snapshot stops after the first nine days. By then, the number of jobs added was almost level with the first nine days of June, 33.9% ahead of July and 27.2% behind August's unusually busy opening.
August was not a quiet bridge between summer and autumn. It was the strongest complete month in this database, so someone waiting until Freshers Week to restart their search could have missed a substantial wave of vacancies.
The week of the month also showed a difference. Looking only at June, July and August, and comparing four equal seven-day blocks:
| Dates | Share of jobs added from the 1st to 28th |
|---|---|
| 1st to 7th | 28.8% |
| 8th to 14th | 23.8% |
| 15th to 21st | 21.9% |
| 22nd to 28th | 25.6% |
The first week produced almost 32% more vacancies than the third week. Most of that gap came from August's very busy opening, though. June was busiest from the 22nd to 28th, July from the 15th to 21st, and August from the 1st to 7th.
So the beginning of a month is worth extra attention, but it is not the only useful window. Jobs kept arriving throughout all four weeks, and a quick daily check remains more reliable than waiting for a particular date.
Days 29 to 31 are left out of the weekly comparison so that every block covers the same number of days.
Why applying early really matters
Popular part-time jobs can move much faster than their closing dates make you expect.
Among vacancies where we could follow the full time they stayed available:
- 21.3% disappeared within three days.
- 41.6% disappeared within seven days.
- 66.5% disappeared within 14 days.
Retail was particularly quick. A typical retail listing stayed visible for 5.7 days, compared with 12.4 days for hospitality.
Tesco moved faster still. Among Tesco jobs with complete timing, a typical listing lasted only 1.6 days, and nearly 91% disappeared within a week.
This is why speed is built into Brighton PartTimer. The moment a new vacancy goes live on the website, we also publish it to our Brighton PartTimer Instagram page. Followers can spot it while it is still fresh and reach the employer before the larger evening or weekend search crowd arrives.
We do not hold vacancies for a weekly roundup, and we do not bury part-time work inside a huge feed of unrelated full-time roles. Brighton PartTimer is built specifically for local part-time jobs, while Instagram gives people an immediate second way to catch them.
Applying early does not mean sending a careless CV. It means having a strong master CV ready, making a quick change for the role and applying while the employer is still actively receiving interest.
The roles Brighton candidates wanted most
Job titles can make the market look more complicated than it is. Sales Assistant, Sales Associate, Retail Assistant, Retail Associate, Sales Advisor, Sales Colleague, Customer Assistant and Store Colleague are often different names for broadly similar shop-floor work.
Once similar titles are grouped together, the pattern becomes much clearer.
| Grouped role family | Share of jobs | Share of candidate interest |
|---|---|---|
| Retail sales and shop-floor assistants | 15.4% | 30.6% |
| Team and crew members | 7.2% | 13.0% |
| Baristas and café front of house | 7.1% | 10.5% |
| Bar and waiting staff | 5.1% | 6.7% |
| Admin and reception | 2.5% | 3.4% |
| Kitchen teams | 7.2% | 5.9% |
| Supermarket colleagues | 6.8% | 5.7% |
Retail sales and shop-floor jobs attracted almost exactly twice as much candidate interest as their share of vacancies.
Team and crew roles showed a similar pattern. They represented 7.2% of jobs but attracted 13.0% of interest. Baristas and café front-of-house roles accounted for 7.1% of jobs and attracted 10.5%.
Put those three families together and you get one of the biggest findings in the database: less than a third of vacancies attracted more than half of all candidate interest.
The most popular individual adverts tell the same story. The three vacancies that directed more than 100 candidates to an employer were all shop-floor retail roles: a Retail Associate position at TK Maxx and Sales Assistant roles at hmv and CeX.
That makes retail, team-member and barista jobs some of the most competitive choices on Brighton PartTimer. A clear availability section, relevant opening profile and early application matter more in these categories.
Where competition may be lighter
The same table gives flexible applicants another useful clue.
Kitchen roles accounted for 7.2% of vacancies but 5.9% of candidate interest. Supermarket colleague roles represented 6.8% of vacancies but 5.7% of interest.
That does not guarantee an easier application, but it suggests that these roles may face less pressure on Brighton PartTimer than sales assistant, team-member or barista jobs.
If your main goal is to start working, widening your search can help. Someone applying only for café or fashion-retail work could also look at kitchen porter, kitchen assistant, supermarket colleague or replenishment roles. The skills still transfer, and the applicant crowd may be smaller.
The retail jobs hub and hospitality jobs hub make it easier to search across these related titles.
The employers attracting the most attention
Posting the most jobs and attracting the most candidates are not always the same thing.
Costa Coffee attracted the largest overall share of candidate interest, closely followed by Tesco. NHS vacancies appeared most often, while TK Maxx attracted unusually strong interest from a much smaller number of listings.
| Employer | Share of jobs | Share of candidate interest |
|---|---|---|
| Costa Coffee | 2.8% | 4.2% |
| Tesco | 6.1% | 4.1% |
| NHS | 7.1% | 3.7% |
| The Flour Pot Bakery | 4.1% | 3.4% |
| DoubleTree by Hilton | 3.8% | 3.3% |
| TK Maxx | 1.2% | 3.2% |
| Next | 2.0% | 3.2% |
| Victoria's Secret | 1.7% | 2.6% |
| Marks & Spencer | 2.1% | 2.5% |
| Co-op | 2.7% | 2.5% |
These ten employers attracted 32.5% of all candidate interest.
TK Maxx stood out for the level of interest around each vacancy, averaging 87 candidate directions per listing. Among employers with at least five jobs, ASDA, Franco Manca, PizzaExpress and Oliver Bonas also averaged more than 48 directions per vacancy.
Costa Coffee led overall candidate interest, which fits with the popularity of barista work. The strong response to TK Maxx, Next, Victoria's Secret and Marks & Spencer also shows just how popular shop-floor retail remains.
There is another positive side to the figures: 67.5% of candidate interest went beyond the ten employers in this table. Brighton's part-time market is not limited to a handful of big names. Local people continued towards opportunities across another 135 employers.
You can use Brighton PartTimer's employer directory to follow businesses that return with new roles, including our Tesco jobs page and NHS jobs page.
Brighton PartTimer is reaching more local jobseekers
Candidate activity has accelerated as Brighton PartTimer has grown.
August brought nearly ten times as many candidate directions as May. In only the first nine days of September, the site had already reached 62% of August's full-month activity.
Across the full job history, 89.6% of vacancies directed at least ten candidates towards an employer, and Brighton PartTimer generated 12,617 candidate directions in total.
That is more than a traffic figure. It means local people are finding relevant jobs and moving from Brighton PartTimer towards the organisations hiring them.
Brighton PartTimer does more than collect links. We find local part-time vacancies, organise them into a focused board, give repeat employers dedicated pages, send candidates straight towards the application route and promote new opportunities immediately on Instagram.
For students, young people and other local jobseekers, that removes hours of checking separate employer websites and makes it much easier to act while a vacancy is still available.
Nearly three in four jobs included an hourly rate
Pay information was clearer than working hours. 73.5% of vacancies had been posted with an hourly rate, while the rest used wording such as “Competitive”.
Among jobs with a rate:
- A typical advertised rate was £13.04 per hour.
- Half sat between £12.71 and £13.50 per hour.
- Around a third used a pay range.
- Around two thirds gave an exact or “up to” figure.
Weekly hours were another story. Only 45.9% of vacancies gave a clear positive number of hours. Most of the rest used wording such as “Flexible” or “Varies”.
Before accepting an offer, ask whether the hours are guaranteed, how far ahead the rota is published and whether the advertised pay changes by age, experience or shift time.
What we would do as a Brighton jobseeker
The first 1,000 Brighton PartTimer jobs point to a practical routine:
- Follow Brighton PartTimer on Instagram. New vacancies are shared as soon as they go live on the website.
- Check around lunchtime and during weekday afternoons. This is when a large share of jobs arrive, before evening activity reaches its height.
- Give Monday and Tuesday extra attention. Waiting until the weekend can put you behind people who saw the vacancy earlier.
- Search across similar titles. Sales Assistant, Sales Associate and Retail Assistant can lead to essentially the same work.
- Move quickly on retail, team-member and barista jobs. These attract a much larger share of candidate interest.
- Consider the less crowded alternatives. Kitchen and supermarket roles drew less interest compared with the number available.
- Keep a ready-to-tailor CV. Speed works best when the application is still relevant and accurate.
- Confirm the hours. A good rate is less useful if the weekly commitment is unclear.
- Keep applying. Continue until you have accepted a written offer.
You can start with the latest part-time jobs in Brighton and Hove and narrow the list by category, schedule and suitability.
What the first 1,000 jobs really show
Brighton and Hove has a busy part-time market, but fresh opportunities and candidate activity do not arrive at exactly the same time.
New jobs were most likely to land during weekday afternoons, and August was the strongest complete month. Candidate activity continued strongly into the evening and weekend. Retail assistants, team members and baristas attracted a much larger share of interest than their share of vacancies, while several popular employers averaged more than 57 candidate directions per listing.
That is exactly where Brighton PartTimer helps. We bring local part-time vacancies into one place, publish them quickly, promote them immediately on Instagram and direct candidates towards employers while the opportunity is still fresh.
Browse the latest part-time jobs in Brighton and Hove.
These figures come from every job in Brighton PartTimer's database backup from 9 September 2026. Similar titles were grouped when comparing role families. Candidate directions record people choosing to continue towards an employer's application route.
