You asked
I am writing to request the information below relating to individuals identified as self-employed in the UK (as detailed in the data released entitled Labour market economic commentary: May 2019).
More specifically, I would like to receive the following for 2017, 2018 and 2019:
- a breakdown of the total (aggregate) number of individuals identified as 'self-employed' by age bracket, ideally 18-24, 25-34, 35-44, 45-54, 55-64 and 65+
We said
Thank you for your query regarding self-employed people broken down by age group.
Estimates relating to the number of people who are self-employed by age are available from the Annual Population Survey (APS), a household survey of people in private households in the UK.
These estimates are published in a dataset on our Nomis website (www.nomisweb.co.uk) which allows you to produce estimates by labour market status and age, for the UK and its regions.
https://www.nomisweb.co.uk/query/construct/summary.asp?mode=construct&version=0&dataset=170
The structure of the published age bands does not allow for an 18-24 age band, instead giving a choice of 16-19, 20-24, or 16-24. For the other age bands, the outputs available are more detailed than your requested bands, which can therefore all be obtained by aggregating available bands.
The attached spreadsheet, produced from the dataset linked above, gives estimates of the number of self-employed people by age band, for the periods January to December 2017 and 2018, and for the twelve-month period July 2018 to June 2019, the latest period available. The spreadsheet also gives a rate, which indicates the proportion of employed people within the age band who are self-employed.
As with all sample surveys, the estimates are subject to a level of uncertainty, as indicated by the accompanying confidence intervals.