WordPress version 6.1 is imminent. The 6.1 Release Candidate 4 was dropped on Thursday October 27 and promises a release of WordPress 6.1 on Tuesday November 1 (see announcement on WordPress.org). While we typically do not warn our users about changes to Core WordPress, this release is notable and we’d like to share a few heads-up.

What You Might See Change When Installing WordPress 6.1

WordPress 6.1 contains numerous improvements to WordPress in many more ways than is typical with a WordPress release. This release is a very developer and performance focused release, but a lot of accessibility driver user interface changes were also included. Here are some things you might see change:

  • WordPress will be way, way, way faster. The changes to WordPress around performance are the result of years of effort by community members contributing from the largest web hosts and web infrastructure companies. Members of the performance team include representatives from Google and Microsoft, as well as our own Paul Bearne, co-owner of Matador. Expect WordPress to be way faster especially in time-to-first-byte and especially in the WordPress admin. This can and will improve your rankings on search engines and reduce bounce rate due to loading times.
  • Some colors in the WordPress Admin were updated to improve contrast for persons with colorblindness and poor eyesight. These changes will impact the overall WordPress admin experience as well as the Matador Jobs admin experience, as our designs are based on and reliant on core WordPress styles.
  • Additionally, some layout and spacing is also updated in the Admin experience for similar purposes.
  • Using keyboards to navigate the WordPress Admin is now much easier and consistent thanks to a focus on accessibility, so next time you’re in the WordPress Admin, try tab‘ing away.

What WordPress 6.1 Means for the Future of Matador Jobs

We previously announced several weeks ago that the next major version of Matador Jobs will require WordPress 5.8. Upon reviewing the updates offered in 6.1, we will now require WordPress 6.1 beginning with Matador Jobs 3.9 and later. While this may force our users to perform updates they may be putting off, the benefits will outshine the required effort. Further, we feel with more than 4 months at the minimum to make this update, you all will be able to get it done in time.

  • The updates to the Block Editor and custom Block tools in WordPress 6.1 came just in time for us at Matador as we are actively building custom Blocks for our 3.9 release. Being able to build them with the recently update tools means they will be feature rich and efficient.
  • From the WordPress 6.1 Field Guide, which primes users and developers on the updates, we identified at least 6 changes we will make to Matador Jobs in version 3.9 that will leverage new features of WordPress to solve known and unknown issues. For example, a change in WordPress 6.1 will allow us to once-and-for-all fix a common issue with our Application Form when deployed in certain caching setups, and that would not have been possible before WordPress 6.1

So, Update Away

While we officially always recommend you run the most recent versions of WordPress, we cannot further emphasize the benefits of this update to you and your company and to the future of our software. As soon as you are ready following the release of WordPress 6.1, we strongly encourage you to update while keeping in mind the minors changes that you will encounter after the update.