1. Summary

The workplace population data highlights the difference between the characteristics of workers employed in London compared with the rest of England and Wales. For example in 2011:

  • The workforce in London was younger, with 54 % of the workplace population aged 39 or below, compared with 45% in the rest of England and Wales.

  • Skill levels were higher in London with almost half (49%) of the workplace population having level 4 (degree level) qualifications. By contrast, outside London, the only local authorities with a share greater than 45% were Oxford and Cambridge. The average for England and Wales excluding London was 32%.

  • There were fewer part-time jobs in London with 24% of the workplace population part-time compared with 30-32% in the other English regions and Wales.

  • The share of the workplace population who were not born in the UK and had arrived in the UK in the previous 10 years was 19% in London compared with 5% of the workplace population in the rest of England and Wales.

Differences among workplace population characteristics within the rest of the English regions and Wales are best shown by local authority data, because the regional averages tend to be similar. Analysis by local authority shows that in 2011:

  • Part-time employment was most common in the coastal local authorities of Weymouth & Portland (41%), Torbay (37%) and Scarborough (37%).

  • The three local authorities with the highest share of Elementary occupations were in the East Midlands region, namely Corby, Harborough, and Bolsover. The share of Skilled trades occupations was highest in the largely rural areas of Torridge, Powys and Mid Devon.

  • Manufacturing accounted for more than a quarter of the workplace population in Corby (27%) and Flintshire (26%). Overall, 9% of the workplace population in England and Wales is employed in the sector.

  • Barrow in Furness, Copeland and Ribble Valley (all in the North West) had the highest share of apprenticeship qualifications amongst their workplace populations.

  • Blackpool, Hastings and Blaenau Gwent had the highest share of workplace population reporting bad or very bad health.

  • West Somerset and North Norfolk had the highest share (39%) of 50 to 74 year olds in their workplace populations.

  • South Holland (13%) and Boston (12%) had the highest share of workplace population holding passports from the EU accession countries.

Finally, analysing data for England’s eight core cities -- the eight largest city economies outside London1 -- shows that in 2011:

  • The highest share of the workplace population employed in professional, managerial and technical occupations was in Manchester (47%) and Bristol (46%), with a 39-43% share in the other Core Cities. This compares to 53% in London.

  • Manchester and City of Bristol are also most similar to London in their share of workplace population within professional, scientific and technical industries: Manchester’s share is 10%, Bristol’s is 9%, and London’s is 11%. Similarly, in the financial and insurance activities industry, Manchester, Leeds (both 7%) and Bristol (8%) only have slightly smaller shares of their workplace population employed in this industry than London (9%).

  • The core cities with the highest share of part-time workers among the workplace population were Sheffield (32%), Liverpool (30%) and Nottingham (30%). The lowest share was in Manchester (26%).

  • The percentage of the workplace population with level 4 qualifications was highest in Manchester (45%), Bristol (42%) and Newcastle upon Tyne (40%). These numbers were below the London share (49%). The core city with the lowest share of its workplace population with these qualification levels was Sheffield (34%).

  • The share of the workplace population in the core cities who were not born in the UK and had arrived in the UK in the previous 10 years was highest in Manchester (10%). In three of the core cities (Newcastle, Liverpool and Sheffield) the share was 5%, the same as the average for England and Wales excluding London. This compares to London’s share of 19%.

Notes for Summary

  1. The eight core cities in England are: Birmingham, Bristol, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Nottingham and Sheffield.
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2. Data

Work Place population tables for Workplace Zones in England and Wales can be found on the Nomis website.

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3. Introduction

This report presents the characteristics of the workplace population of the local authorities in England and Wales. The workplace population of an area is an estimate of the number of people working in the area, both residents (including both home workers and resident workers with no fixed place of work) and non-resident commuters into the area. Note that only commuters who are resident in either England or Wales are included.

This report mostly focuses on presenting 2011 Census data on the characteristics of the workplace populations for local authorities in England and Wales. Data on industry, occupation, employment status, hours worked, qualifications, age, gender, health, passport held, country of birth and length of residency are included.

Data are also available for smaller geographies. In particular, the release of workplace population data is the first time that data has been made available for a new Workplace Zones geography. The final section of this report briefly considers the analytical potential of these new geography boundaries.

Workplace population: Comparison with other population bases (resident and workday population)

The 2011 Census provides information on the population in England and Wales based on different population bases, including: usual residence population, workplace population, and workday population.

In line with the usual residence and workday populations, the workplace population is based on individuals who were present in England and Wales, or intending to be present, for 12 months or longer. In other words, it excludes short-term residents (anyone living in England and Wales who was born outside the UK and who intended to stay in the UK only for a period of between 3 and 12 months).

  • The usual residence population in area A is defined as the population residing in area A. It is an estimate of all individuals that live in area A, irrespective of whether they work or where they work.

  • The workplace population in area A is defined as the population working in area A, regardless of where within England and Wales they live.

  • The workday population in area A is defined as all people that are in area A during a normal workday. It includes all people that work in area A, whether residents or non-residents in the area, plus all residents in the area not in work, i.e. it is the sum of the workplace population and residents not in work.

Note, an individual working in Area A but living in Scotland will not be included in the workplace population of Area A. This data is compiled from the England and Wales census only and therefore includes only residents of England and Wales in the workplace (and workday) populations.

The chart below illustrates the relation between these three population bases, where:

* A1: Resident population in work in area A. (All individuals that live in area A and work in area A or who live in area A and have no fixed workplace).

* A2: Resident population not in work. (All individuals that live in area A and don’t work).

* A3: Resident population not in work in the area, but in work elsewhere. (i.e. out-commuters that live in area A and work in a different area).

* B: Non-resident population in work in the area (i.e. in-commuters who live in other areas different from A but work in area A).

And the three population bases are defined as:

* Resident population in area A = A1 + A2 + A3

* Workplace population in area A = A1 + B

* Workday population in area A = A1 + A2+ B, or

* Workday population in area A = Workplace population + A2

Comparison of three population bases: Resident, workplace, and workday

Comparison of three population bases: Resident, workplace, and workday

In summary, the resident population is the population that have usual residency in an area, the workplace population is the population working in an area, and the workday population is the population in an area during a typical working day, including both those working in the area and those residing in the area that are not in work.

This report is the first Census 2011 report to analyse the workplace population data. An analysis of the workday population has already been published and is available here. All other Census 2011 articles published to date by ONS have focused on analysis of residential population, i.e. geographically based by where people live.

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4. Employment characteristics

This section summarises characteristics of the employment patterns of the workplace population as collected in the 2011 Census. The information is self-reported by individuals via the Census – it is not a survey of businesses. The sample includes all individuals who were economically active and in employment the week before Census day.

Estimates are presented on industry, occupation, qualifications, employment status, and hours worked. In general, data are considered first at the regional level and then each section highlights key differences across the local authorities in England and Wales.

Industry

The 2011 Census classifies Industry type into 21 different groups. Table 1 shows the regions/countries with highest and lowest shares of workplace population working in each of these 21 industry categories. For example, 2% of the workplace population in Wales worked in agriculture, forestry and fishing (industry group A), making it the region with the highest share of workplace population employed in this sector. At the other extreme, London has the lowest share of workplace population employed in this industry group (0.1% share).

The data in Table 1 shows that East Midlands was the region with the highest share of its workforce working in the manufacturing sector (category C) at 13%. This share was similar in other northern and midland regions of England, and Wales, which all had between 10% and 13% of their workplace population working in this sector. London had the lowest share of workers in Manufacturing (3%), followed by the South East, South West and East of England, with shares between 8% and 9%.

London had the highest percentage share of workplace population working in a number of the main technical and high skilled industries: 7% of workplace population in London was in the Information and communication sector (category J), 9% in Financial and insurance (category K), and 11% in Professional, scientific and technical activities (category M). In total, 27% of London’s workforce was employed in these three sectors.

Observing the distribution of workers working in these three high-skilled service sector industries (categories J, K, and M) across regions, there was a higher share of workers in the Greater South East (East of England, London and the South East). More than half of the total workplace population in England and Wales working in these three sectors work in one of these three regions. Therefore, whilst the Greater South East accounted for 42% of the workplace population of England and Wales overall, for these sectors the share was higher:

- 60% for Information and communication,

- 57% for Financial and Insurance, and

- 55% for Professional, scientific and technical industries

Table 2 lists the top 3 local authorities which had the highest share of workforce population in each of the 21 industry groups. Some local authorities had high concentrations of workforce working in one single industry; for example, the local authorities with more than a quarter of their population working in one single industry were:

* Manufacturing: Corby (27%) and Flintshire (26%)

* Wholesale and retail trade; repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles: Broxbourne, Harborough, Thurrock (28% each), Dartford (26%),and Welwyn Hatfield (25%)

* Financial and insurance activities: City of London (46%) and Tower Hamlets (33%).

* Public administration and defence; compulsory social security: Richmondshire (32%).

The local authorities with the highest share of their workforce in agriculture, forestry and fishing (category A) were Powys in Wales and Torridge in the South West; the local authorities with highest shares of workforce employed in education jobs (category P) were Oxford, Cambridge, and Canterbury, and the local authorities with the highest share of jobs in the arts and entertainment industries (categories R and S) were Kensington and Chelsea and Richmond Upon Thames in London.

Occupation

There are 9 different occupational categories, which can be compressed into the following 3 groups:

* Professional, managerial and technical

  • Managers, directors and senior officials

  • Professional occupations

  • Associate professional and technical occupations

* Skilled, semi-skilled

  • Administrative and secretarial occupations|

  • Skilled trades occupations

  • Caring, leisure and other service occupations

  • Sales and customer service occupations

  • Process, plant and machine operatives

* Elementary

  • Elementary occupations

Figure 2 shows the share of workplace population in each of the regions and Wales, based on the three aggregated groups. The data shows that all regions except London (and to a lesser extent the South East) had broadly similar proportions of their workplace population assigned to each group. Therefore excluding London and the South East, all regions and Wales had 35-39% of their workplace population in Professional occupations, 50-53% in Skilled or semi-skilled jobs, and 11-13% in Elementary occupations.

London by contrast had 53% of its workplace population in Professional occupations, 39% in Skilled or semi-skilled jobs, and 9% in Elementary occupations (43%, 47% and 10% respectively in South East).

Table 3 presents the top 3 local authorities which had the highest share of workplace population in each of the 9 original occupational categories. The highest shares of Managers, directors and senior officials were in City of London and Tower Hamlets (home to Canary Wharf) as well as Isles of Scilly. The highest shares within professional occupations were Cambridge, Oxford and the London borough of Camden.

The highest share of workplace population across the combined Professional, managerial and technical sectors was 74% in City of London, followed by 66% in Tower Hamlets and 65% in Camden. The highest shares by region/country were within the local authorities of Cambridge (East of England) 55%; Oxford (South East) 54%; Richmondshire (Yorkshire and The Humber) 49%; Warwick (West Midlands) 47%; Manchester (North West) 47%; City of Bristol (South West) 46%; Rushcliffe (EM) 44%; Cardiff (Wales) 43%; and Newcastle Upon Tyne (North East) 43%.

Skilled trades occupations in the workplace population were highest in the largely rural areas of Torridge, Powys and Mid Devon. The three local authorities with the highest share of elementary occupations were in East Midlands: Corby, Harborough, and Bolsover whilst Corby also had one of the highest shares of workplace population in Process, plant and machines operatives occupations.

Employment status

Table 4 presents employment status for the regions and Wales. It is classified into three categories: Employee, Self-employed and Full-time student. The Full-time student category in this section only includes full-time students who are also in employment. The employee and self-employed categories exclude these working full-time students.

The data show that all regions had an equal ratio of full-time students who were in employment (4% of their workplace population). The regions with the highest percentage of self-employed workers (17%) were London, South East and South West, while the region with the lowest share of self-employed was the North East (11%), followed by North West and Yorkshire and the Humber (13% each).

Table 5 lists the top 10 local authorities with the highest share of workplace population in each of these three employment status categories. As with the regional/country statistics shown in Table 4, all local authorities with a higher share of self-employed workers were in London and the South, except Powys in Wales. The local authority with a higher number of self-employed workers was Isles of Scilly (33% of its workforce); otherwise, local authorities with a high level of self-employment in the workforce were a mix of urban London boroughs (Haringey, Waltham Forest) and largely rural boroughs in the South West, South East and Wales.

The share of self-employed workers in the workforce of all local authorities is shown in Map 1. The highest shares of self-employed workers ranged between 33.4% and 23% (30 local authorities) and the lowest ones ranged between 11.8% and 7% (66 local authorities).

Map 1: Share of self-employed workers in the workplace population, local authorities in England and Wales, Census 2011

Map 1: Share of self-employed workers in the workplace population, local authorities in England and Wales, Census 2011

Part-time and full-time workers

Tables 6 and 7 present statistics for the share of part-time (less than 30 hours)and full-time workers in the regions/country and local authorities of England and Wales. There were no major regional/country differences between the share of part-time and full-time workers, except for London. The proportion of workers working part-time was 30% to 32% for all regions/countries excluding London, whereas 24% of the workplace population reported having part-time jobs in London. The region with the highest percentage of part-time workers was the South West (32%).

Table 7 presents the top 10 local authorities with the highest share of part-time workers and full-time workers. The local authority with the highest share of part-time workers was Weymouth and Portland (41% of its workplace population reported working part-time); the local authority with the lowest share of part-time workers was the City of London (8% of its workplace population), followed by Westminster (15%) and Tower Hamlets (16%). Only two of the ten local authorities with the highest share of workplace population working full-time were outside London: Slough and Rushmoor, both in the South East.

Qualifications

The 2011 Census questionnaire collects data on the highest level of academic, vocational or professional qualification. The level categorisation used is:

* No qualifications: No formal qualifications,

* Level 1: 1-4 GCSEs or equivalent qualifications,

* Level 2: 5 GCSEs or equivalent qualifications,

* Apprenticeships,

* Level 3: 2 or more A-levels or equivalent qualifications,

* Level 4 or above: Bachelors degree or equivalent, and higher qualifications,

* Other qualifications including foreign qualifications.

Figure 3 presents the share of workplace population for each of these categories at the regional/country level2. All areas showed similar shares for each category, except London.

The averages for England and Wales excluding London were: 11% of workers had no qualifications, 15% had Level 1 qualifications, 18% Level 2 qualifications, 4% Apprenticeships, 15% Level 3 qualifications, 32% Level 4 qualifications, and 5% Other qualifications.

London differed considerably from these average values: its share of workers with no qualifications and level 1 qualifications was smaller and its shares of workers in all other categories were larger, especially in the category “Level 4 qualifications and above”: 49% of London’s workplace population had Level 4 qualifications and above.

2 In Figure 3, the categories No qualifications and Level 1 qualifications are grouped into one category.

Table 8 shows the top 3 local authorities with the highest share of workplace population for each of the qualification categories. The results from these rankings are in line with the regional level results; for example, the local authorities with the highest share of workplace population with Level 4 qualifications and above were all in London - the top one is City of London, with a share of 66%.

The share of workplace population with Level 1 or No qualifications ranged from 38% (Castle Point) to 9% (City of London) for all local authorities. In total, 65 local authorities had a share between 30% and 38%, 255 had a share of less than 30% but more than 20%, and 28 local authorities had a share between 20% and 9%. Most local authorities in this latter group were in the Greater South East, except four: Manchester, Bath and North East Somerset, Cheltenham, and Isles of Scilly.

Table 9 lists the local authorities with the highest share of workers with Level 4 or above qualifications. Panel A presents the data for London; Panel B presents the data for all other regions in England, and Wales.

There were twelve London boroughs where over 50% of their workplace population had level 4 qualifications. These were the ten in Table 9-Panel A plus Richmond upon Thames and Wandsworth. Only Oxford and Cambridge had similar shares outside of London. Meanwhile, Manchester was the only local authority outside of the Greater South East in the top 10 list in Table 9-Panel B, with a share of 45% of its workforce having level 4 qualifications. The highest shares in the other regions/countries not mentioned in Table 9-panel B are Cheltenham (SW) 42%, Warwick (WM) 42%, Cardiff (Wales) 41%, Newcastle-upon-Tyne (NE) 40%, Rushcliffe (EM) 39% and York (Yorkshire and The Humber) 39%.

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5. Workplace population characteristics

This section presents some characteristics of the workplace population in England and Wales, in particular: Age and sex distributions, health, passport held, country of birth, and length of residency of non-UK born workers.

Figure 4: Workplace population pyramids of London and the rest of regions in England, and Wales

England and Wales, 2011

Figure 4: Workplace population pyramids of London and the rest of regions in England, and Wales

Source: 2011 Census, Office for National Statistics

Figure 4 shows the population pyramids of London and all other regions in England, and Wales. The workforce in London was younger with the proportion of the workplace population aged 39 or below being 54% in London compared with 45% in the rest of England and Wales.

Tables 10 and 11 present a closer look at the age and gender distribution of workers within local authorities. Table 10 focuses on the share of workers aged 50 to 74, while Table 11 lists the local authorities with the highest workforce shares for each gender.

Table 10 presents the local authorities with the highest proportion of workers age 50 or above. Panel A shows the 10 local authorities with the highest proportion of workplace population aged 50 to 64; Panel B shows the 10 local authorities with the highest proportion of workplace population aged 65 to 74.

Table 10 shows that the highest shares of 50-64 year olds in the workplace population occurred in local authorities that were largely rural, particularly in the South West region. There is a similar picture among 65-74 year olds, with the largest share of workplace population in this age category in Isles of Scilly and West Somerset. Overall, it is West Somerset (South West) and North Norfolk (East of England) that had the highest shares (39%) of 50-74 year olds in their workplace populations. The lowest shares were in City of London (14%) and Tower Hamlets (15%), while the lowest share outside London was in Manchester (21%).

Table 11 lists the top 10 local authorities with the highest shares of males and females in their workplace population. The local authority with the highest proportion of male workforce was Richmondshire (64% males); the local authority with the lowest proportion of male workforce was Middlesbrough (44% males, 56% females).

Health

The 2011 Census collected data on self-reported health, based on a 5-point scale: very good, good, fair, bad or very bad. These 5 categories can be grouped into 3 broader categories: Very good or good, Fair, and Very bad or bad. On average, 90% of the workplace population in England and Wales reported having very good or good health, 9% reported having fair health, and 1% reported having bad or very bad health. Figure 5 presents the proportion of workplace population with fair or bad or very bad health in each region of England, and Wales. London had the smallest shares across these two categories (and therefore the largest share reporting good or very good health) and West Midlands the largest.

Table 12 presents health statistics for the workplace population at local authority level. The local authority with the highest percentage of workplace population reporting very bad or bad health was Blackpool in the North West (2.2% of its workplace population); the local authority with the lowest share of workplace population in this category was Isles of Scilly (0.5% of its workplace population).

City of London, Westminster, and Tower Hamlets (all in London) were 3 of the 4 local authorities with the highest share of workplace population reporting very good or good health. Relatively young age profiles of the workforce in these local authorities will be one of the explanations for this. The top 10 local authorities that reported highest shares of very good or good health were in London, South East and South West, with shares between 95% and 92% of their population reporting very good or good health. The top 3 local authorities that reported the lowest share of workplace population with very good or good health were Hastings (South East), Thanet (South East), and Sandwell (West Midlands), with 87% of their workplace population reporting having good or very good health.

Nationality (passports held)

This section presents data on nationality using census data on passports held. People may change their nationality over time or acquire dual nationality and hold more than one passport. Data tables give priority to British passports held, then Irish passports; then if someone does not have a British or Irish passport they are coded according to the response written in the ‘other’ passport box.

Table13 shows that 22% of London’s workplace population held a non-UK passport (without holding a UK passport) in 2011. Elsewhere the share varies between 8% of the workplace population in South East and East of England and 3% in the North East.

Table 14 shows the local authorities which had the largest proportion of non-UK passport holders amongst their workplace population in 2011. There were six local authorities outside of London in which the share was 15% or above –the five local authorities shown in Table 14 and Luton. This contrasts with 29 out of the 33 London boroughs having a similar share of 15% or above. The highest share was in Brent where 32% of the workplace population held a non-UK passport. These results, showing a higher share of non-UK passport holders in London, are consistent with the regional/country data in the previous table.

Table 15 focuses on the shares of the workplace population who hold an EU (excluding UK) passport. Overall, the London borough of Brent had the highest share with 19% of its workplace population holding an EU passport in 2011. Focusing just on passport holders from those EU countries that were members of the EU in 2001 (excluding UK), Kensington and Chelsea had the highest share within its workplace population at 13%. Looking just at passport holders from EU accession (post 2004) countries, the East Midlands local authorities of South Holland (13%) and Boston (12%) had the highest shares.

Country of birth

The 2011 Census collected information on the country of birth of all resident population in England and Wales. It also collected information on the length of residency of non-UK born residents for the first time in the Census. The next two subsections present this data.

The differences between the data in these two sections and the data in the nationality section that measured passports held arises from the fact that many people born abroad will be UK citizens and hold a UK passport, either because their parents were UK citizens overseas at the time of their birth, or because they have been granted UK citizenship since arriving.

Table 16 presents this data for 2011 at regional level and for Wales. Country of birth has been classified into 3 categories: Born in the UK, born in Europe (non-UK), and born in the Rest of the World (non-Europe). The data shows: o The share of UK-born workplace population was 89% in England and Wales excluding London and 62% in London; o the share of workplace population born in European countries (non-UK) was 5% in England and Wales excluding London and 13% in London, and o the share of workplace population born outside of Europe was 6% in England and Wales excluding London and 24% in London.

Table 17 presents the local authorities with the largest and smallest shares of UK-born workplace population. The local authority with the highest percentage of UK-born workplace population was Copeland (North West), with 97% of UK-born workplace population; the local authority with the lowest share was Brent in London (40%).

There were 46 local authorities with 20% or more non-UK born workplace population in 2011. Thirty of these were in London and all others were in the rest of the Greater South East, except Leicester (East Midlands). This supports the regional data in Table 16 which show that the South East was the region with the highest share of non-UK born workforce after London, followed closely by East of England.

Length of residency

The 2011 Census is the first census to include a question on length of residency for non-UK born residents. Table 18 presents this data, showing a comparison between London and all other regions in England, and Wales. Figure 6 shows these numbers disaggregated by regions. Both Table 18 and Figure 6 show that London was exceptionally different from the rest of England and Wales: 38% of the workplace population in London were born outside the UK, compared with 11% for England and Wales excluding London.

With respect to the proportion of workplace population that was not born in the UK and arrived in the 10 years (2001-2011) prior to the Census, in England and Wales (excluding London) the share was 6% whilst in London it was 19%.

The share of the workplace population that was not born in the UK and arrived in England and Wales before March 2001, meanwhile, was 19% in London and 5% in England and Wales, excluding London.

Tables 19 and 20 show the data at the local authority level. Table 19 presents the top 10 local authorities with the highest share of non-UK born workplace population that arrived in the UK between March 2009 and March 2011, both for London and for all regions in England (excluding London), and Wales. Table 20 presents the equivalent list for non-UK born population that had arrived in the UK between March 2001 and March 2011. The shares of non-UK born workplace population that had arrived in the 2 and 10 years previous to Census 2011 (Tables 19 and 20, respectively) were higher for the top 10 London local authorities than for the top 10 local authorities outside London. The only exception to this is Forest Heath (East of England), which includes a US Air Force Base.

Within London, in Newham, Brent, Ealing and Kensington and Chelsea over a quarter of the workplace population in 2011 consisted of people who were born outside the UK and had arrived in the UK within the previous 10 years. Outside London (and excluding Forest Heath), Slough, South Holland and Boston had the highest shares, followed by Oxford and Cambridge.

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6. Workplace zones: a new ONS geography

The analysis in this article has so far described workplace population data at the Local Authority geography. However, the data are also available for a number of different geographies including, for the first time, workplace zones. This section briefly describes workplace zones, giving a few illustrations as to how they can be used for analysis of local geographies.

Workplace zones are a new output geography produced to accompany the 2011 census. They were created to provide a small area geography in which there are a roughly consistent number of workers employed in each zone. This contrasts with the existing output area geography, which is built on the premise of having a broadly consistent number of residents in each zone. There are some significant implications arising from this difference, particularly amongst local areas that are either heavily residential or heavily employment focused.

For areas that are largely residential, the existing output area geography causes disclosure issues when used for workplace population data. This is because the workplace population in such areas is often very small and it therefore becomes impossible to publish information about the characteristics of the workplace population in such areas as it would lead to release of confidential (disclosive) information. The workplace zone geography avoids this problem as, by design, it will not have areas with such small numbers of workers, thus allowing more detail of workers’ characteristics to be made available for all workplace zones.

For areas that are largely industrial/business, by contrast, the problem with using output areas has been that in places such as City of London and Canary Wharf (which have relatively few residents), they are covered by only a small number of output areas. When workplace population data is provided for these output areas, the workplace population numbers become very large, and the small area detail for such areas is lost. The workplace zones allow for such areas to be broken down into a much larger number of zones, based on workers not residents. This allows far greater detail to be made available about the geography of workplaces in these areas. As an example, for 2001, data on workplace populations for the City of London were only available divided between 36 output areas. In 2011, it is available divided between 336 workplace zones.

The existence of the workplace zone geography allows users to ‘zoom in’ and examine the data summarised elsewhere in this article in detail at the local level. The maps in this section give a flavour of the possibilities available. For example, in Map 2, data on the share of workers with level 4 qualifications (equivalent to degree level) are shown for each workplace zone in the Southampton area. The map shows the distribution of graduates across Southampton by the location of their workplace. It can be seen that there is quite a lot of variation, with some local areas having in excess of 42.9% of workers with a degree and other areas having fewer than 21.6%. An interactive Google map allowing users to investigate the same data for their local area is available.

Map 2: Percentage of workers with Level 4 (degree) qualifications or above

Workplace population, Southampton, Workplace Zones, 2011

Map 2: Percentage of workers with Level 4 (degree) qualifications or above

Map 3 uses data on occupation to show the geographical coverage of the finance sector in London. It shows the percentage of workers in each zone who are employed as financial institution managers and directors. It shows both the cluster of finance activity in and around the City of London but also shows a smaller cluster in the Mayfair area of London.

Map 3: Percentage of workers employed as financial institution managers and directors

Workplace population, London, Workplace Zones, 2011

Map 3: Percentage of workers employed as financial institution managers and directors

There are many analytical possibilities arising from the workplace population data being viewed for the first time using this workplace zone geography. ONS will seek to provide further analysis later in the year. In the meantime, alongside today’s release, a number of interactive maps have been published providing Census 2011 workplace population data using the workplace zone geography, in particular focusing on qualifications, economic activity, hours worked and age.

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.Background notes

  1. Details of the policy governing the release of new data are available by visiting www.statisticsauthority.gov.uk/assessment/code-of-practice/index.html or from the Media Relations Office email: media.relations@ons.gov.uk
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Contact details for this Article

Alexa Bradley
census.customerservices@ons.gov.uk
Telephone: +44 (0)1329 444972