David,
You are right that the situation in the UK is dismal. I can't comment on
the ratio of PhD's to jobs, but certainly the number of new jobs is
ridiculously small. I've not been paying attention to posts in modern
British History, but in Medieval/Early Modern Britain I've seen about 5
jobs advertised in the last 4 years, and most of these were one-year
contracts. In my department, we are seeking to expand the number of PhD
students (though of course not all of these work on British history)
because we desperately need the income. It's rather grim.
Angela Mangis
A.Mangis@Lancaster.ac.uk