Hours worked recorded in 2001 and 2011 Census data

FOI reference: FOI-2025-3282

You asked

I’d like to request access to the following data:

• Any information pertaining to question 35 on the 2001 Census: 'How many hours a week do you usually work in your main job?' 
• On the census this question is open ended, if the data is available broken down by nearest hour e.g. number of people who answered 1hour, 2hours, 3hours etc all the way to the max number of hours answered that would be great. If not, then any available data in any empirical format is good too 
• Any information pertaining to question 42 on the 2011 Census: 'In your main job, how many hours a week (including paid and unpaid overtime) do you usually work? 15 or less, 16-30, 31-48, 49 or more’ 
• If the 2001 data happens to be formalised into categories (the same or different to that of the 2011 census) that would also be useful

We said

Thank you for your request. 

Please see the following 2001 and 2011 Census data as requested. These can be found in the associated download. 

2001 Census – KS010: Hours Worked 
This dataset relates to Question 35: “How many hours a week do you usually work in your main job?” 
Responses were grouped into the following categories: 

• 1 to 5 hours 
• 6 to 15 hours 
• 16 to 30 hours 
• 31 to 37 hours 
• 38 to 48 hours 
• 49 hours or more 

2011 Census – KS604EW: Hours Worked 
This dataset relates to Question 42: “In your main job, how many hours a week (including paid and unpaid overtime) do you usually work?”  
Responses were grouped into the following categories: 

• 15 hours or less 
• 16 to 30 hours 
• 31 to 48 hours 
• 49 hours or more 

This data has been downloaded from the Nomis website. Nomis is run by Durham University on behalf of the Office for National Statistics (ONS). 

If you have any queries regarding census data, please direct them to census.customerservices@ons.gov.uk, who will be able to assist.