The Participation Survey is a continuous push-to-web survey of adults aged 16 and over in England. It serves as a successor to the Taking Part survey, which ran for 16 years as a continuous face to face survey. Paper surveys are available for those not digitally engaged. Fieldwork started in October 2021 and it is envisaged that the survey will be a key evidence source for Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) and its sectors by providing statistically representative national estimates of adult engagement with the DCMS sectors. The survey’s main objectives are to:

• Provide a central, reliable evidence source that can be used to analyse cultural, digital, and sporting engagement, providing a clear picture of why people do or do not engage.
• Provide data at a county level to meet user needs, including providing evidence for the levelling up agenda.
• Underpin further research on driving engagement and the value and benefits of engagement.

Further information on the survey can be found on the gov.uk Participation Survey webpage.

Three versions of the Participation Survey 2022-2023 are available:

• This open access version (SN 9126). This version is freely available to download and does not require UK Data Service registration.
• A safeguarded dataset (SN 9125), which includes some additional detail. It is only available to registered UKDS users who have agreed to abide by the conditions of the End User Licence.
• A Secure Access version containing all years (SN 9014), which contains further detailed information. Access to this version is very restricted and requires UKDS registration, completion of an extensive application form, approval from the depositor, and successful completion of a Safe Researcher Training course before access can be granted. Users are advised to first download the safeguarded version (SN 9125) to check whether it includes sufficient detail for their research, before considering making an application for the Secure Access version.

Details of all variables available for the version concerned can be found in the UKDS Data Dictionary - see the Documentation section.

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 fourth edition (March 2024), the smoking variables CIGEVER, CIGNOW and CIGSMK16 were added to the dataset.

The UK Innovation Survey is part of a wider Community Innovation Survey (CIS) covering EU countries. The survey is based on a core questionnaire developed by Eurostat and Member States, and results form part of various EU benchmarking exercises. The UK Innovation Survey is funded by BEIS and carried out by the Office for National Statistics with assistance from the Northern Ireland Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment. More historic information prior to 2009 is available from the National Archives website. For access to granular microdata, please contact Official for National Statistics (ONS) Secure Research Service or UK Data Service.

Source agency: Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy

Designation: Official Statistics not designated as National Statistics

Language: English

Alternative title: Community Innovation Survey

Findings from the Coronavirus (COVID-19) Infection Survey for England.

The Environment Agency undertakes fisheries monitoring work on rivers, lakes and transitional and coastal waters (TraC).

This dataset contains site and survey information, the numbers and species of fish caught, fish lengths, weights and ages (where available), for all the freshwater fish surveys carried out across England from 1975 onwards.

Notes: - These survey data are stored in an archive more commonly known as the NFPD (National Fish Populations Database). - This dataset contains Freshwater fish surveys only. - Third party data held on the NFPD are excluded from the dataset. - Some historic surveys (particularly in Anglian Central) have incorrect survey lengths and survey widths. These can be identified by a survey length of 1 and a survey width that is equal to the area. The survey areas are correct. This is due to the migration of old historic data from previous databases into the NFPD. - Approved for Access under AfA347.

Please see the Dataset Documentation for further detail.

Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.

Background

New reweighting policy
Following the new reweighting policy ONS has reviewed the latest population estimates made available during 2019 and have decided not to carry out a 2019 LFS and APS reweighting exercise. Therefore, the next reweighting exercise will take place in 2020. These will incorporate the 2019 Sub-National Population Projection data (published in May 2020) and 2019 Mid-Year Estimates (published in June 2020). It is expected that reweighted Labour Market aggregates and microdata will be published towards the end of 2020/early 2021.

Secure Access QLFS household data
Up to 2015, the LFS household datasets were produced twice a year (April-June and October-December) from the corresponding quarter's individual-level data. From January 2015 onwards, they are now produced each quarter alongside the main QLFS. The household datasets include all the usual variables found in the individual-level datasets, with the exception of those relating to income, and are intended to facilitate the analysis of the economic activity patterns of whole households. It is recommended that the existing individual-level LFS datasets continue to be used for any analysis at individual level, and that the LFS household datasets be used for analysis involving household or family-level data. For some quarters, users should note that all missing values in the data are set to one '-10' category instead of the separate '-8' and '-9' categories. For that period, the ONS introduced a new imputation process for the LFS household datasets and it was necessary to code the missing values into one new combined category ('-10'), to avoid over-complication. From the 2013 household datasets, the standard -8 and -9 missing categories have been reinstated.

Secure Access household datasets for the QLFS are available from 2002 onwards, and include additional, detailed variables not included in the standard 'End User Licence' (EUL) versions. Extra variables that typically can be found in the Secure Access versions but not in the EUL versions relate to: geography; date of birth, including day; education and training; household and family characteristics; employment; unemployment and job hunting; accidents at work and work-related health problems; nationality, national identity and country of birth; occurence of learning difficulty or disability; and benefits.

Prospective users of a Secure Access version of the QLFS will need to fulfil additional requirements, commencing with the completion of an extra application form to demonstrate to the data owners exactly why they need access to the extra, more detailed variables, in order to obtain permission to use that version. Secure Access users must also complete face-to-face training and agree to Secure Access' User Agreement (see 'Access' section below). Therefore, users are encouraged to download and inspect the EUL version of the data prior to ordering the Secure Access version.

LFS Documentation
The documentation available from the Archive to accompany LFS datasets largely consists of each volume of the User Guide including the appropriate questionnaires for the years concerned. However, LFS volumes are updated periodically by ONS, so users are advised to check the ONS LFS User Guidance pages before commencing analysis.

The study documentation presented in the Documentation section includes the most recent documentation for the LFS only, due to available space. Documentation for previous years is provided alongside the data for access and is also available upon request.

Review of imputation methods...

Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.

The General Household Survey (GHS), ran from 1971-2011 (the UKDS holds data from 1972-2011). It was a continuous annual national survey of people living in private households, conducted by the Office for National Statistics (ONS). The main aim of the survey was to collect data on a range of core topics, covering household, family and individual information. This information was used by government departments and other organisations for planning, policy and monitoring purposes, and to present a picture of households, families and people in Great Britain. In 2008, the GHS became a module of the Integrated Household Survey (IHS). In recognition, the survey was renamed the General Lifestyle Survey (GLF). The GLF closed in January 2012. The 2011 GLF is therefore the last in the series. A limited number of questions previously run on the GLF were subsequently included in the Opinions and Lifestyle Survey (OPN).

Secure Access GHS/GLF
The UKDS holds standard access End User Licence (EUL) data for 1972-2006. A Secure Access version is available, covering the years 2000-2011 - see SN 6716 General Lifestyle Survey, 2000-2011: Secure Access.

History
The GHS was conducted annually until 2011, except for breaks in 1997-1998 when the survey was reviewed, and 1999-2000 when the survey was redeveloped. Further information may be found in the ONS document An overview of 40 years of data (General Lifestyle Survey Overview - a report on the 2011 General Lifestyle Survey) (PDF). Details of changes each year may be found in the individual study documentation.

EU-SILC
In 2005, the European Union (EU) made a legal obligation (EU-SILC) for member states to collect additional statistics on income and living conditions. In addition, the EU-SILC data cover poverty and social exclusion. These statistics are used to help plan and monitor European social policy by comparing poverty indicators and changes over time across the EU. The EU-SILC requirement was integrated into the GHS/GLF in 2005. After the closure of the GLF, EU-SILC was collected via the Family Resources Survey (FRS) until the UK left the EU in 2020.

Reformatted GHS data 1973-1982 - Surrey SPSS Files
SPSS files were created by the University of Surrey for all GHS years from 1973 to 1982 inclusive. The early files were restructured and the case changed from the household to the individual with all of the household information duplicated for each individual. The Surrey SPSS files contain all the original variables as well as some extra derived variables (a few variables were omitted from the data files for 1973-76). In 1973 only, the section on leisure was not included in the Surrey SPSS files. This has subsequently been made available, however, and is now held in a separate study, General Household Survey, 1973: Leisure Questions (SN 3982). Records for the original GHS 1973-1982 ASCII files have been removed from the UK Data Archive catalogue, but the data are still preserved and available upon request.

The main GHS consisted of a household questionnaire, completed by the Household Reference Person (HRP), and an individual questionnaire, completed by all adults aged 16 and over resident in the household. A number of different trailers each year covering extra topics were included in later (post-review) surveys in the series from 2000.

• The household questionnaire covered the following topics: household information, accommodation type, housing tenure/costs, and consumer durables including vehicle ownership.
• The individual questionnaire included data from the household dataset, and additional sections on migration/citizenship/national identity/ethnicity, employment, pensions, education, health, child care, smoking, drinking, family information, financial situation, and income.
  

The Family Resources Survey (FRS) has been running continuously since 1992 to meet the information needs of the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). It is almost wholly funded by DWP.

The FRS collects information from a large, and representative sample of private households in the United Kingdom (prior to 2002, it covered Great Britain only). The interview year runs from April to March.

The focus of the survey is on income, and how much comes from the many possible sources (such as employee earnings, self-employed earnings or profits from businesses, and dividends; individual pensions; state benefits, including Universal Credit and the State Pension; and other sources such as savings and investments). Specific items of expenditure, such as rent or mortgage, Council Tax and water bills, are also covered.

Many other topics are covered and the dataset has a very wide range of personal characteristics, at the adult or child, family and then household levels. These include education, caring, childcare and disability. The dataset also captures material deprivation, household food security and (new for 2021/22) household food bank usage.

The FRS is a national statistic whose results are published on the gov.uk website. It is also possible to create your own tables from FRS data, using DWP’s Stat Xplore tool. Further information can be found on the gov.uk Family Resources Survey webpage.

Secure Access FRS data
In addition to the standard End User Licence (EUL) version, Secure Access datasets, containing unrounded data and additional variables, are also available for FRS from 2005/06 onwards - see SN 9256. Prospective users of the Secure Access version of the FRS will need to fulfil additional requirements beyond those associated with the EUL datasets. Full details of the application requirements are available from http://ukdataservice.ac.uk/media/178323/secure_frs_application_guidance.pdf" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Guidance on applying for the Family Resources Survey: Secure Access.

FRS, HBAI and PI
The FRS underpins the related Households Below Average Income (HBAI) dataset, which focuses on poverty in the UK, and the related Pensioners' Incomes (PI) dataset. The EUL versions of HBAI and PI are held under SNs 5828 and 8503, respectively. The Secure Access versions are held under SN 7196 and 9257 (see above).

Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.

Background
The Labour Force Survey (LFS) is a unique source of information using international definitions of employment and unemployment and economic inactivity, together with a wide range of related topics such as occupation, training, hours of work and personal characteristics of household members aged 16 years and over. It is used to inform social, economic and employment policy. The Annual Population Survey, also held at the UK Data Archive, is derived from the LFS.

The LFS was first conducted biennially from 1973-1983, then annually between 1984 and 1991, comprising a quarterly survey conducted throughout the year and a 'boost' survey in the spring quarter. From 1992 it moved to a quarterly cycle with a sample size approximately equivalent to that of the previous annual data. Northern Ireland was also included in the survey from December 1994. Further information on the background to the QLFS may be found in the documentation.

The UK Data Service also holds a Secure Access version of the QLFS (see below); household datasets; two-quarter and five-quarter longitudinal datasets; LFS datasets compiled for Eurostat; and some additional annual Northern Ireland datasets.

LFS Documentation
The documentation available from the Archive to accompany LFS datasets largely consists of the latest version of each user guide volume alongside the appropriate questionnaire for the year concerned (the latest questionnaire available covers July-September 2022). Volumes are updated periodically, so users are advised to check the latest documents on the ONS Labour Force Survey - User Guidance pages before commencing analysis. This is especially important for users of older QLFS studies, where information and guidance in the user guide documents may have changed over time.

LFS response to COVID-19

From April 2020 to May 2022, additional non-calendar quarter LFS microdata were made available to cover the pandemic period. The first additional microdata to be released covered February to April 2020 and the final non-calendar dataset covered March-May 2022. Publication then returned to calendar quarters only. Within the additional non-calendar COVID-19 quarters, pseudonymised variables Casenop and Hserialp may contain a significant number of missing cases (set as -9). These variables may not be available in full for the additional COVID-19 datasets until the next standard calendar quarter is produced. The income weight variable, PIWT, is not available in the non-calendar quarters, although the person weight (PWT) is included. Please consult the documentation for full details.

Occupation data for 2021 and 2022 data files

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. 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.

2024 Reweighting

In February 2024, reweighted person-level data from July-September 2022 onwards were released. Up to July-September 2023, only the person weight was updated (PWT23); the income weight remains at 2022 (PIWT22). The 2023 income weight (PIWT23) was included from the October-December 2023 quarter. Users are encouraged to read the ONS methodological note of 5 February, Impact of reweighting on Labour Force Survey key indicators: 2024, which includes important information on the 2024 reweighting exercise.

End User Licence and Secure Access QLFS data

Two versions of the QLFS are available from UKDS. One is available under the standard End User Licence (EUL) agreement, and the other is a Secure Access version. The EUL version includes country and Government Office Region geography, 3-digit Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) and 3-digit industry group for main, second and last job (from July-September 2015, 4-digit industry class is available for main job only).

The Secure Access version contains more detailed variables relating to:

• 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
• finer detail...

The Health Survey for England series was designed to monitor trends in the nation's health; estimating the proportion of people in England who have specified health conditions, and the prevalence of risk factors and behaviours associated with these conditions. The surveys provide regular information that cannot be obtained from other sources. The surveys have been carried out since 1994 by the Joint Health Surveys Unit of NatCen Social Research and the Research Department of Epidemiology and Public Health at UCL. Each survey in the series includes core questions, e.g. about alcohol and smoking, and measurements (such as blood pressure, height and weight, and analysis of blood and saliva samples), and modules of questions on topics that vary from year to year. The trend tables show data for available years between 1993 and 2016 for adults (defined as age 16 and over) and for children. The survey samples cover the population living in private households in England. In 2016 the sample contained 8,011 adults and 2,056 children and 5,049 adults and 1,117 children had a nurse visit. We would very much like your feedback about whether some proposed changes to the publications would be helpful and if the publications meet your needs. This will help us shape the design of future publications to ensure they remain informative and useful. Please answer our reader feedback survey on Citizen Space which is open until 18 June 2018.

This page is no longer updated. It has been superseded by the Business insights and impacts on the UK economy dataset page (see link in Notices). It contains comprehensive weighted datasets for Wave 7 onwards. All future BICS datasets will be available there. The datasets on this page include mainly unweighted responses from the voluntary fortnightly business survey, which captures businesses’ responses on how their turnover, workforce prices, trade and business resilience have been affected in the two-week reference period, up to Wave 17.

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.

Flows estimates from the Labour Force Survey, levels and rates, UK, quarterly.

Size and growth within UK non-financial business sectors, as measured by the Annual Business Survey, by four-digit Standard Industrial Classification 2007.

Characteristics of sampled households in the Living Costs and Food Survey.

This dataset is the complete collection of the British Geological Survey (BGS) held Marine Survey data. The data held includes digital data and analogue records, plus associated physical sample material. Data are stored within the National Geosciences Data Centre (NGDC) and the Marine Environmental Data and Information Network (MEDIN) Data Archive Centre (DAC) for Geology and Geophysics. BGS have collected Marine Survey data since 1966 and have also been provided with a range of third-party data. The data includes geophysical data (seismic reflection, side-scan sonar, multibeam echosounder bathymetry and backscatter, gravity and magnetics) and sample data from boreholes, cores and seabed grabs (logs, geological descriptions, geochemical, particle size analysis and geotechnical data). The majority of surveys are within the United Kingdom Continental Shelf (UKCS) area. Individual survey data coverage varies, depending on survey type (sampling, geophysics, multibeam or multi-disciplinary) and objectives (regional or local, shallow or deep). These data are applicable to a wide range of uses including environmental, geotechnical, geophysical and geological studies. Data are delivered via the BGS Offshore GeoIndex www.bgs.ac.uk/GeoIndex/offshore.htm. Additional data are available on request enquiries@bgs.ac.uk.

Labour market indicators for UK constituent countries and English regions, including employment, unemployment, economic inactivity, workers' hours, jobs and Claimant Count, published monthly.