I'm now a final year student due to submit Sept 16. This time next year I'll have to get one of those horrible jobs ;-) Any advice on career prep over this last year and when's the time to start applying for jobs? Thanks in advance.

We probably need a bit more information on what sort of job you hope to get, and if academic roughly what field but a few general thoughts:

Get both an academic and a non-academic cv drawn up and get advice from the university careers service if they have someone who specialises in PhD candidates - mine did and she (and my supervisor) were very helpful in stopping me making some rookie errors on my academic cv in particular.

Think through the parameters of the job search (and make sure any partner / family are on board too). Where is it ok to apply - international / national / local? How long are you prepared and able to hang out for your preferred job? What's a good plan B / C /D? Are there financial restrictions e.g. you can't hang around doing part-time hourly paid teaching as you need to pay a mortgage? Make sure those around you understand how hard it is to get an academic job - I could have murdered several of my nearest and dearest for their utter failure to understand that. I think if you do some of this thinking ahead of searching you (and partner/family) are better prepared psychologically.

Try to see what people have on their cvs who have been recently hired into jobs you'd like. Do you have any obvious gaps and if so can you fill them during this year?

Finally if humanities / social sciences and wanting an academic job, make sure you know about the postdoc funding schemes out there and what the deadlines are. Those applications need a LOT of forward planning.