Datasets available

The VML does not hold the microdata for every Office for National Statistics (ONS) survey. Please see Dataset downloads for a comprehensive list of all the datasets available from the VML.

If you wish to gain access to ONS business data that is not included in the list, please contact us and we will investigate whether it is possible to gain access to the requested data source.

Key documentation, including examples of recent questionnaires, is available for downloading. Please note that ONS surveys are sometimes based upon questionnaires that can differ slightly between different industry sectors depending upon the nature of questions being asked.

In these cases, the questionnaires available for downloading will relate to the most 'general' or 'default' questionnaire for these surveys. Questionnaires may also be of a 'long' or 'short' form. Short form questionnaires are issued to minimise the costs on business of completing questionnaires and will therefore contain fewer questions.

The Inter Departmental Business Register (IDBR) is the key sampling frame for business surveys within ONS.

Enterprises appearing within ONS surveys are assigned a unique IDBR reference number which can facilitate the linking of information on the same enterprise, both between different surveys and over time.

The largest and most comprehensive ONS business survey is the Annual Business Inquiry. Due to the size and content of this survey, the ABI generally forms the spine against which most linking activity within the VML takes place.