There were over 33.9 million people employed in the United Kingdom in the three months to January 2025. This represented a peak for the number of people employed in the country during this provided time period. In general, the number of people employed has consistently increased, with noticeable dips in employment occurring in 2008 due to the global financial crisis, and in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Labor market hot streak in 2022 Although there was a sharp increase in the UK's unemployment rate in the aftermath of COVID-19, the UK labor market bounced back forcefully after this sudden shock. By the middle of 2022, the UK's unemployment rate had recovered to pre-pandemic levels, while the number of job vacancies in the UK reached record highs. Wage growth was, by this point, growing at a much slower rate than inflation, which peaked at 11.1 percent in October 2022. In the two years since this peak, the UK labor market has cooled slightly; with unemployment reaching 4.4 percent by December 2024, and the number of job vacancies falling to the lowest figures since May 2021. Characteristics of UK workers As of 2024, the majority of UK workers were working in the private sector, at over 27.6 million workers. In the same year the size of the UK's public sector workforce stood at approximately 6.1 million, with over two million of these people working for the UK's National Health Service (NHS), and a further 1.66 million in the public education sector. In the UK's private sector, the industry sector which employed the most people was wholesale and retail, which had a workforce of over 4.9 million people, followed by administrative and support service roles at around 3.1 million.

Latest London Region Data and trends for a number of core indicators of the health of London's labour market.

• Download the London data in an Excel file

Latest core indicators at a glance

• Download as a PDF

Indicator data for all boroughs

Here is the latest reliable skills and employment data that exists for London boroughs and sub-regions. It covers the last three years, where possible, to show the latest figures and trends over time.

• Download the borough data in an Excel file

Core Indicators

Number of London residents of working age in employment

Employment rate

Number of male London residents of working age in employment

Male employment rate

Number of female London residents of working age in employment

Female employment rate

Workforce jobs

Jobs density

Number of London residents of working age who are economically inactive

Economic inactivity rate

Number of London residents aged 16+ who are unemployed (model based)

Proportion of London residents aged 16+ who are unemployed (model based)

Claimant unemployment

Claimant Count as a proportion of the working age population

Incidence of skill gaps (Numbers and rates)

GCSE (5+ A*–C) attainment including English and Maths

Number of working age people in London with no qualifications

Proportion of working age people in London with no qualifications

Number of working age people in London with Level 4+ qualifications

Proportion of working age people in London with Level 4+ qualifications

Number of people of working age claiming out of work benefits

Proportion of the working age population who claim out of work benefits

Number of young people aged 16-18 who are not in employment, education or training (NEET)

Proportion of 16-18 year olds who are NEET

Additional Indicators

Economy and Productivity

Business Demography (active enterprises, births and deaths of enterprises)

Business Demography (active enterprises, births and deaths of enterprises): Index

Business Demography (National indicators)

Demand for labour: Jobs, vacancies and skills needs

Total vacancies reported by employers

Skill shortage vacancies

JobCentre vacancies - notified

JobCentre vacancies - unfilled

Number employed by industry (working age)

Employment rates by industry (working age)

Number employed by occupation

Employment rates by occupation

Working age who are self-employed

Numbers employed in the civil service

Population and supply of labour

Population estimates (working age)

National Insurance Number Registrations of overseas nationals

Employment projections

Number employed by ethnic groups (working age)

Employment rates by ethnic groups (working age)

Number employed by age groups

Employment rates by age groups

Number employed by disability (working age)

Employment rates by disability (working age)

Employment: Part time/ Full time

Inactivity by reason (working age)

Inactivity rates by reason (working age)

JSA claimants by ethnic groups

Incapacity Benefit claimants by duration

Working age benefit claimants by statistical group

Aged 18-24, claiming JSA for over 6 months

Aged 18-24, claiming JSA for over 9 months

Aged over 25, claiming JSA for over 1 year

JSA claimant flows

JSA claimant flows: index

Skills and learning

Total achieving 5+ A*-C grades inc. English & Mathematics by characteristics

Percentage achieving 5+ A*-C grades inc. English & Mathematics by characteristics

GCE A level examination results of 16-18 year olds

Working age population by qualification level and sex

Working age rates by qualification level and sex

Qualification levels of those in employment (working age)

Number with no adult learning (working age)

Proportion with no adult learning (working age)

Received job related training in last 13 wks (working age)

Apprenticeship Programme starts and achievements - summary

Apprenticeship Programme starts and achievements - index

Apprenticeship Programme starts by level and age

Apprenticeship Programme achievements by level and age

Number of 19 year olds qualified to Level 3

Proportion of 19 year olds qualified to Level 3

Worklessness and NEETS

Worklessness by sex and age (working age)

Worklessness rates by sex and age (working age)

Worklessness numbers and rates by qualification levels (working age)

Within the borough spreadsheet, statistics are shown for boroughs, inner London, outer London, Thames Gateway London, Olympic Host Boroughs, West London, and West London Alliance.

Further Labour Market Indicator tools are available from the CESI website.

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As of the fourth quarter of 2024, the employment rate in the United Kingdom was highest among 35 to 49-year-old's, with 85.8 percent of that age group employed. In the same quarter, approximately 12.1 percent of over 65s were employed, a peak for this provided time period, while the employment rate for 16 to 24s fell to 50 percent, one of the lowest rates for this age group.

Economic activity rates, employment rates and unemployment rates broken down by ethnic group. The economically active population comprises those who are either employed or unemployed and excludes those who are economically inactive. The data are taken from the Annual Population Survey (APS), produced by the Office for National Statistics.

In January 2025, the employment rate in the United Kingdom was 74.9 percent, up from 74.7 percent in the same period a year earlier. After almost dropping below 70 percent in 2011, the employment rate in the United Kingdom started to climb at a relatively fast pace, peaking in early 2020. Due to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, however, the employment declined to 74.6 percent by January 2021. Although not quite at pre-pandemic levels, the employment rate has since recovered. Hot UK labor market cools in 2023 Although unemployment in the UK spiked at 5.1 percent in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, it fell throughout most of 2022, to just 3.6 percent in August 2022. Around that time, the number of job vacancies in the UK was also at quite high levels, reaching a peak of 1.3 million by May 2022. The strong labor market put employees in quite a strong position, perhaps encouraging the high number of resignations that took place around that time. While wage growth has also been strong since 2022, these gains were cancelled-out for a long period between 2021 and 2023 when inflation grew faster than wages. By July 2023, unemployment had bounced back to 4.3 percent, while the number of job vacancies fell below one million in August 2023 for the first time since August 2021. UK in recession at end of 2023 Although the UK labor market has loosened since 2022, it has generally remained in good health, with unemployment low by historical standards. Inflation also fell throughout 2023, from 10.1 percent at the beginning of the year, to four percent by December. Getting inflation down to more acceptable levels, however, came at the expense of raising the Bank of England's already high-interest rate throughout 2023. The knock-on effect of higher borrowing costs likely did little to spur economic growth that year, with GDP growing by just 0.1 percent in 2023. Even this meager economic growth was only achieved due to growth in the first half of the year. In the second half of 2023, the economy shrank in two consecutive quarters, meaning the UK is officially in recession heading into a probable election year.

In 2022, employed people in the white ‘other’ and Indian ethnic groups (both 82%) were the most likely to work full time out of all ethnic groups.

This dataset has now been discontinued following a user consultation. However figures for employment by occupation, sourced from our Annual Population Survey are available on our NOMIS website.

In the fourth quarter of 2024, the employment rate for men aged between 16 and 64 in the United Kingdom was 78.2 percent, while for women it was 71.8 percent. The male employment rate has consistently been higher than that of females in this provided time period, although the gap was much greater at the start of this period.

In 2022, the highest and lowest rates of economic inactivity were in the combined Pakistani and Bangladeshi (33%) and white 'other’ (15%) ethnic groups.

About this dataset

Context

The dataset tabulates the London population by age cohorts (Children: Under 18 years; Working population: 18-64 years; Senior population: 65 years or more). It lists the population in each age cohort group along with its percentage relative to the total population of London. The dataset can be utilized to understand the population distribution across children, working population and senior population for dependency ratio, housing requirements, ageing, migration patterns etc.

Key observations

The largest age group was 18 to 64 years with a poulation of 697 (59.12% of the total population). Source: U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey (ACS) 2019-2023 5-Year Estimates.

Content

When available, the data consists of estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey (ACS) 2019-2023 5-Year Estimates.

Age cohorts:

• Under 18 years
• 18 to 64 years
• 65 years and over

Variables / Data Columns

• Age Group: This column displays the age cohort for the London population analysis. Total expected values are 3 groups ( Children, Working Population and Senior Population).
• Population: The population for the age cohort in London is shown in the following column.
• Percent of Total Population: The population as a percent of total population of the London is shown in the following column.

Good to know

Margin of Error

Data in the dataset are based on the estimates and are subject to sampling variability and thus a margin of error. Neilsberg Research recommends using caution when presening these estimates in your research.

Custom data

If you do need custom data for any of your research project, report or presentation, you can contact our research staff at research@neilsberg.com for a feasibility of a custom tabulation on a fee-for-service basis.

Inspiration

Neilsberg Research Team curates, analyze and publishes demographics and economic data from a variety of public and proprietary sources, each of which often includes multiple surveys and programs. The large majority of Neilsberg Research aggregated datasets and insights is made available for free download at https://www.neilsberg.com/research/.

Recommended for further research

This dataset is a part of the main dataset for London Population by Age. You can refer the same here

Daytime population - The estimated number of people in a borough in the daytime during an average day, broken down by component sub-groups.

The figures given are an average day during school term-time. No account has been made for seasonal variations, or for people who are usually in London (resident, at school or working), but are away visiting another place.

Sources include the Business Register and Employment Survey (BRES) (available under license), Annual Population Survey (APS), 2011 Census, Department for Education (DfE), International Passenger Survey (IPS), GB Tourism Survey (GBTS), Great Britain Day Visit Survey (GBDVS), GLA Population Projections, and GLA Economics estimates (GLAE).

The figures published in these sources have been used exactly as they appear - no further adjustments have been made to account for possible sampling errors or questionnaire design flaws.

Day trip visitors are defined as those on day trips away from home for three hours or more and not undertaking activities that would regularly constitute part of their work or would be a regular leisure activity.

International visitors – people from a country other than the UK visiting the location;
Domestic overnight tourists – people from other parts of the UK staying in the location for at least one night.
All visitor data is modelled and unrounded.

This edition was released on 14 January 2015 and replaces the previous estimates for 2012.

GLA resident population, 2011 Census resident population, and 2011 Census workday populations (by sex) included for comparison.

For more workday population data by age use the **Custom Age-Range Tool for Census 2011 Workday population , or download data for a range of geographical levels from NOMIS. **

For further detailed information about methodology, users should consult the Labour Force Survey User Guide, included with the APS documentation. For variable and value labelling and coding frames that are not included either in the data or in the current APS documentation, users are advised to consult the latest versions of the LFS User Guides, which are available from the ONS Labour Force Survey - User Guidance webpages.

Occupation data for 2021 and 2022
The ONS has identified an issue with the collection of some occupational data in 2021 and 2022 data files in a number of their surveys. While they estimate any impacts will be small overall, this will affect the accuracy of the breakdowns of some detailed (four-digit Standard Occupational Classification (SOC)) occupations, and data derived from them. None of ONS' headline statistics, other than those directly sourced from occupational data, are affected and you can continue to rely on their accuracy. The affected datasets have now been updated. Further information can be found in the ONS article published on 11 July 2023: Revision of miscoded occupational data in the ONS Labour Force Survey, UK: January 2021 to September 2022

APS Well-Being Datasets
From 2012-2015, the ONS published separate APS datasets aimed at providing initial estimates of subjective well-being, based on the Integrated Household Survey. In 2015 these were discontinued. A separate set of well-being variables and a corresponding weighting variable have been added to the April-March APS person datasets from A11M12 onwards. Further information on the transition can be found in the Personal well-being in the UK: 2015 to 2016 article on the ONS website.

APS disability variables
Over time, there have been some updates to disability variables in the APS. An article explaining the quality assurance investigations on these variables that have been conducted so far is available on the ONS Methodology webpage.

• age: single year of age, year and month of birth, age completed full-time education and age obtained highest qualification, age of oldest dependent child and age of youngest dependent child
• family unit and household: including a number of variables concerning the number of dependent children in the family according to their ages, relationship to head of household and relationship to head of family
• nationality and country of origin
• geography: including county, unitary/local authority, place of work, Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics 2 (NUTS2) and NUTS3 regions, and whether lives and works in same local authority district
• health: including main health problem, and current and past health problems
• education and apprenticeship: including numbers and subjects of various qualifications and variables concerning apprenticeships
• industry: including industry, industry class and industry group for main, second and last job, and industry made redundant from
• occupation: including 4-digit Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) for main, second and last job and job made redundant from
• system variables: including week number when interview took place and number of households at address

The Secure Access data have more restrictive access conditions than those made available under the standard EUL. Prospective users will need to gain ONS Accredited Researcher status, complete an extra application form and demonstrate to the data owners exactly why they need access to the additional variables. Users are strongly advised to first obtain the standard EUL version of the data to see if they are sufficient for their research requirements.

Latest edition information

For the seventh edition (April 2024), variables HIQUAL11, HIQUAL11D and fdpch16 have been replaced.

The most up-to-date information on London's economy, published by email every month. Each issue includes an overview of current economic conditions, the latest indicators and a supplement on a significant issue facing London.

Additional data from the latest edition of London’s Economy Today can be found here on the Datastore.

Sign up to receive London's Economy Today every month.

HOUSING INDICATORS

The Land Registry house price index (Quarterly since 1968). Land Registry data External link

LABOUR MARKET INDICATORS

The unemployment rate. (Monthly since Q2 1992) The unemployment rate measures the proportion of the economically active population (those in work plus those seeking and available to work) who were unemployed. Seasonally Adjusted.

TRANSPORT INDICATORS

London Underground Journeys (Monthly since 2006) including moving average and annual rate of growth

Bus Journeys (Monthly since 2006) including moving average and annual rate of growth

Numbers of people who work in an area by gender, and whether an employee or self-employed.

This data shows the number of jobs, not the number of people. People with more than one job are counted more than once.
Figures may not add up due to rounding. Figures are rounded to the nearest thousand. Percentages are rounded to one decimal place and were calculated on unrounded figures.
Employees - An employee is anyone aged 16 years or over that an organisation directly pays from its payroll(s), in return for carrying out a full-time or part-time job or being on a training scheme. It excludes voluntary workers, self-employed and working owners who are not paid via PAYE
People who are self-employed in a second job are included in the self-employed totals.
Self-employment data is taken from the Annual Population Survey, and is by place of work. The micro data is available from the UK Data Archive.
The male/female split for employee jobs was taken from the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings data from NOMISweb.co.uk. These proportions were then applied to the BRES employee totals since the ASHE is a not a reliable source for total employee jobs.

See more on the BRES website.

Experimental estimates from the Annual Population Survey for homeworking in the UK, including breakdowns by sex, full-time or part-time, ethnicity, occupation, industry, qualifications, hours worked, pay and sickness absence among others. Includes regression outputs on the different outcomes for homeworkers.

As of January 2025, there were around 4.39 million self-employed workers in the United Kingdom. During this provided time-period, self-employment in the UK has grown steadily, from a low of just 3.2 million in December 2000, to a peak of over five million at the start of 2020. After the COVID-19 pandemic, however, self-employment has fallen to levels not seen since the middle of 2015 and has struggled to recover to its pre-pandemic peak. Demographics of the self-employed There has consistently been more men self-employed than women in the UK, with recent figures showing that over 2.8 million men, and over 1.5 million women were self-employed. As of 2024, the most likely age group to be self-employed were those aged 65 or over, with over a third of workers in this age group self-employed. In the same year, around 16.5 percent of workers in London were self-employed, compared with the UK average of 13.1 percent, making London the region with the highest rate of self-employment in the UK. Self-employment support scheme In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the UK government unveiled various measures to mitigate the economic costs to businesses and individuals. For self-employed workers, this manifested itself as the Self-Employment Income-Support Scheme, which was in its third iteration, or tranche, by December 2020. During the first tranche, which ran from March to July, there were 2.7 million claims made in total, with claims to the second and third tranches numbering 2.4 million and 1.7 million respectively. As of December 13, 2020, the overall value of these claims amounted to 14.5 billion British pounds.

About this dataset

Context

The dataset presents the detailed breakdown of the count of individuals within distinct income brackets, categorizing them by gender (men and women) and employment type - full-time (FT) and part-time (PT), offering valuable insights into the diverse income landscapes within London. The dataset can be utilized to gain insights into gender-based income distribution within the London population, aiding in data analysis and decision-making..

Key observations

• Employment patterns: Within London, among individuals aged 15 years and older with income, there were 3,799 men and 3,796 women in the workforce. Among them, 2,132 men were engaged in full-time, year-round employment, while 1,526 women were in full-time, year-round roles.
• Annual income under $24,999: Of the male population working full-time, 1.74% fell within the income range of under $24,999, while 8.13% of the female population working full-time was represented in the same income bracket.
• Annual income above $100,000: 31.80% of men in full-time roles earned incomes exceeding $100,000, while 11.73% of women in full-time positions earned within this income bracket.
• Refer to the research insights for more key observations on more income brackets ( Annual income under $24,999, Annual income between $25,000 and $49,999, Annual income between $50,000 and $74,999, Annual income between $75,000 and $99,999 and Annual income above $100,000) and employment types (full-time year-round and part-time)

Content

When available, the data consists of estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey (ACS) 2019-2023 5-Year Estimates.

Income brackets:

• $1 to $2,499 or loss
• $2,500 to $4,999
• $5,000 to $7,499
• $7,500 to $9,999
• $10,000 to $12,499
• $12,500 to $14,999
• $15,000 to $17,499
• $17,500 to $19,999
• $20,000 to $22,499
• $22,500 to $24,999
• $25,000 to $29,999
• $30,000 to $34,999
• $35,000 to $39,999
• $40,000 to $44,999
• $45,000 to $49,999
• $50,000 to $54,999
• $55,000 to $64,999
• $65,000 to $74,999
• $75,000 to $99,999
• $100,000 or more

Variables / Data Columns

• Income Bracket: This column showcases 20 income brackets ranging from $1 to $100,000+..
• Full-Time Males: The count of males employed full-time year-round and earning within a specified income bracket
• Part-Time Males: The count of males employed part-time and earning within a specified income bracket
• Full-Time Females: The count of females employed full-time year-round and earning within a specified income bracket
• Part-Time Females: The count of females employed part-time and earning within a specified income bracket

Employment type classifications include:

• Full-time, year-round: A full-time, year-round worker is a person who worked full time (35 or more hours per week) and 50 or more weeks during the previous calendar year.
• Part-time: A part-time worker is a person who worked less than 35 hours per week during the previous calendar year.

Good to know

Margin of Error

Data in the dataset are based on the estimates and are subject to sampling variability and thus a margin of error. Neilsberg Research recommends using caution when presening these estimates in your research.

Custom data

If you do need custom data for any of your research project, report or presentation, you can contact our research staff at research@neilsberg.com for a feasibility of a custom tabulation on a fee-for-service basis.

Inspiration

Neilsberg Research Team curates, analyze and publishes demographics and economic data from a variety of public and proprietary sources, each of which often includes multiple surveys and programs. The large majority of Neilsberg Research aggregated datasets and insights is made available for free download at https://www.neilsberg.com/research/.

Recommended for further research

This dataset is a part of the main dataset for London median household income by race. You can refer the same here

The employment rate of London was 74.5 percent in the twelve months to March 2024, which was higher than in England's metropolitan counties, that cover six major urban areas in the country. Of these counties, the West Midlands had the lowest employment rate of 69.6 percent.

Approximately 14.8 percent of people aged 16 to 24 were unemployed in the United Kingdom in the fourth quarter of 2024, the highest of any age group in that month. During this time period, older age groups have had much lower unemployment rates than younger ones, who have consistently had the highest unemployment rate. For almost all the age groups, the peak in the unemployment rate was recorded in 2011 when almost a quarter of young working age people were unemployed. Young adults in the labor market In the provided time period, youth unemployment was at its lowest rate in the third quarter of 2022, when it was 10.3 percent. Since then, there has been a noticeable uptick in youth unemployment, which was 14.8 percent towards the end of 2024. A more long-term trend among this age group is the increase in economic inactivity, with 40.8 percent of 16 to 24-year-old's not in work or actively looking for work in 2024. Although students or people in training account for a high share of this economic inactivity, there has also been a rise in the proportion of young adults who are not in education, employment or training (NEET), which reached a ten-year-high of 13.2 percent in late 2024. Unemployment up from low baseline in late 2024 In 2022, the UK labor market, had very low levels of unemployment along with a record number of job vacancies. Throughout 2023 and 2024, this very tight labor market began to loosen, although is still quite low by historic standards. One indicator that has stood out since the COVID-19 pandemic, however, has been the number of people economically inactive due to being on long-term sick leave, which reached 2.82 million in the first quarter of 2024, and has been the main reason for economic inactivity in the UK since late 2021.

Unemployment numbers and rates for those aged 16 or over. The unemployed population consists of those people out of work, who are actively looking for work and are available to start immediately.

Unemployed numbers and rates also shown for equalities groups, by age, sex, ethnic group, and disability.

The data are taken from the Labour Force Survey and Annual Population Survey, produced by the Office for National Statistics.

The data are produced monthly on a rolling quarterly basis. The month shown is the month the quarter ends on.

The International Labour Organization defines unemployed people as: without a job, want a job, have actively sought work in the last 4 weeks and are available to start work in the next 2 weeks, or, out of work, have found a job and are waiting to start it in the next 2 weeks.

The figures in this dataset are adjusted to compensate for seasonal variations in employment (seasonally adjusted).

Data by equalities groups has a longer time lag and is only available quarterly from the Annual Population Survey, which is not seasonally adjusted.

Useful links

Click here for Regional labour market statistics from the Office for National Statistics.

Click here for Labour market statistics from the Office for National Statistics.

See here for GLA Economics' Labour Market Analysis.

See here for Economic Inactivity statistics.

See here for Employment rates.

This dataset is one of the Greater London Authority's measures of Economic Fairness. Click here to find out more.