FOI reference: FOI-2026-3529
You asked
From the Census 2021 I request a cross-tabulation of usual residents of England and Wales aged 16 to 64, broken down by:
- Economic activity status: employed; self-employed; unemployed; economically inactive – retired; economically inactive – student; economically inactive – looking after home or family; economically inactive – long-term sick or disabled; economically inactive – other
- Country of birth: UK-born; non-UK born (and where numbers allow, by broad world region: Europe excluding UK; Asia; Africa; Americas; Other)
- Age band: 16 to 24, 25 to 34, 35 to 49, 50 to 64
- Sex: male, female
Please suppress any cells below ten in line with standard ONS Census disclosure control practice rather than withholding the entire table.
I understand this cross-tabulation is producible from the Census 2021 microdata held by ONS without requiring data from any other government department.
We said
Thank you for your request.
The information you have requested is already publicly available through our Create a custom dataset tool. This tool allows users to generate bespoke Census 2021 tables by selecting, adding, removing, and modifying variables to meet their analytical requirements.
Using this tool, you can produce a dataset containing the following variables:
economic activity
country of birth
age
sex
You can then apply filters to restrict the age variable to the bands you have specified (16 to 24, 25 to 34, 35 to 49, and 50 to 64), and group country of birth into UK‑born and non‑UK‑born populations, including broad world regions where disclosure control permits.
The Create a custom dataset tool automatically applies Census 2021 disclosure control, including suppression of small counts, in line with standard Office for National Statistics practice. This meets your request for suppression of cells below ten, without the need to withhold the entire table.
If you need anything further regarding availability of census data, please contact census.customerservices@ons.gov.uk.