In teaching (schools), jobs usually come up to coincide with the start of a new term. In other words, to start in September, January or April.

What is the situation in academia? There's around 10 jobs in my field being advertised at the moment, with a view (presumably) to commencing in time for the 2015/16 academic year.

My query is - do posts come up year round? Do the same restrictions apply to universities as to teaching in schools, whereby you can only leave at the end of a term/half-term?

With me completing my PhD hopefully by September/October, is there hope that posts may come up in December/January, and I won't have to wait til July 2016 before I apply for some?

I'm in Humanities if it helps!

They do come up all year, but yes you are right, the majority seem to have passed now as many start in Oct. You can leave any time as far as I know. Many of the Oct posts are advertised from March.

In most universities you have to give 3 months notice, but the reality is that most people would work out the semester to avoid unnecessary disruption, so as not to burn bridges with the colleagues you're leaving.Traditionally there was a peak period of adverts for lectureships around February / March for a September start date but it seems to have spread out and got later in the last few years - probably as student numbers have been quite volatile for many universities, and people are waiting to get a sense of that before advertising. There are far fewer adverts in the Autumn for lectureships, but research jobs seem to crop up fairly randomly.