Hospitality leaders across the UK continue to face intense recruitment pressure. In 2025, the sector employed around 2.7 million people (over 7% of UK employment), yet still carried approximately 77,000 unfilled vacancies in food and accommodation. More telling still, the industry lost nearly 9,000 jobs in late 2025, during what would normally be a peak hiring period (ONS labour market data as analyzed by the House of Commons Library, Dec 2025). This isn’t a short-term disruption. It’s a...