Dataset

This dataset was created by Adam Muhtar

Contents

Immigration was seen by 55 percent of people in the UK as one of the top three issues facing the country in November 2025. The economy was the second-most important issue for voters this month, ahead of health as a distant third. These three issues have consistently been identified as the most important issues for voters. Labour's popularity continues to sink in 2025 Despite winning the 2024 general election with a strong majority, the new Labour government has had its share of struggles since coming to power. Shortly after taking office, the approval rating for Labour stood at -2 percent, but this fell throughout the second half of 2024, and by January 2025 had sunk to a new low of -47 percent. Although this was still higher than the previous government's last approval rating of -56 percent, it is nevertheless a severe review from the electorate. Among several decisions from the government, arguably the least popular was the government withdrawing winter fuel payments. This state benefit, previously paid to all pensioners, is now only paid to those on low incomes, with millions of pensioners not receiving this payment in winter 2024. Sunak's pledges fail to prevent defeat in 2024 With an election on the horizon, and the Labour Party consistently ahead in the polls, addressing voter concerns directly was one of the best chances the Conservatives had of staying in power in 2023. At the start of that year, Rishi Sunak attempted to do this by setting out his five pledges for the next twelve months; halve inflation, grow the economy, reduce national debt, cut NHS waiting times, and stop small boats. A year later, Sunak had at best only partial success in these aims. Although the inflation rate fell, economic growth was weak and even declined in the last two quarters of 2023, although it did return to growth in early 2024. National debt was only expected to fall in the mid to late 2020s, while the trend of increasing NHS waiting times did not reverse. Small boat crossings were down from 2022, but still higher than in 2021 or 2020. .

The UK economy shrank by 0.1 percent in September 2025 after reporting zero growth in the previous month. Since a huge decline in GDP in April 2020, the UK economy has gradually recovered and is now slightly larger than it was before the COVID-19 pandemic. After the initial recovery from the pandemic, however, the UK economy has effectively flatlined, fluctuating between low growth and small contractions since 2022. Labour banking on growth to turn around fortunes in 2025 In February 2025, just over half a year after winning the last general election, the approval rating for the new Labour government fell to a low of -48 percent. Furthermore, the Prime Minister, Keir Starmer was not only less popular than the new Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, but also the leader of the Reform Party, Nigel Farage, whose party have surged in opinion polls recently. This remarkable decline in popularity for the new government is, in some part, due to a deliberate policy of making tough decisions early. Arguably, the most damaging of these policies was the withdrawal of the winter fuel allowance for some pensioners, although other factors such as a controversy about gifts and donations also hurt the government. While Labour aims to restore the UK's economic and political credibility in the long term, they will certainly hope for some good economic news sooner rather than later. Economy bounces back in 2024 after ending 2023 in recession Due to two consecutive quarters of negative economic growth, in late 2023 the UK economy ended the year in recession. After not growing at all in the second quarter of 2023, UK GDP fell by 0.1 percent in the third quarter, and then by 0.3 percent in the last quarter. For the whole of 2023, the economy grew by 0.4 percent compared to 2022, and for 2024 is forecast to have grown by 1.1 percent. During the first two quarters of 2024, UK GDP grew by 0.7 percent, and 0.4 percent, with this relatively strong growth followed by zero percent growth in the third quarter of the year. Although the economy had started to grow again by the time of the 2024 general election, this was not enough to save the Conservative government at the time. Despite usually seen as the best party for handling the economy, the Conservative's economic competency was behind that of Labour on the eve of the 2024 election.

United Kingdom UK: Government Effectiveness: Estimate data was reported at 1.414 NA in 2017. This records a decrease from the previous number of 1.602 NA for 2016. United Kingdom UK: Government Effectiveness: Estimate data is updated yearly, averaging 1.648 NA from Dec 1996 (Median) to 2017, with 19 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 1.933 NA in 1998 and a record low of 1.414 NA in 2017. United Kingdom UK: Government Effectiveness: Estimate data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by World Bank. The data is categorized under Global Database’s United Kingdom – Table UK.World Bank.WGI: Country Governance Indicators. Government Effectiveness captures perceptions of the quality of public services, the quality of the civil service and the degree of its independence from political pressures, the quality of policy formulation and implementation, and the credibility of the government's commitment to such policies. Estimate gives the country's score on the aggregate indicator, in units of a standard normal distribution, i.e. ranging from approximately -2.5 to 2.5.

This statistic displays the results of a survey amongst UK citizens in April 2016, regarding their opinion on the desirability of the EU intervening in economic policies. ** percent of respondents reported they believed the EU should intervene more in economic matters than at present.

In March 2020, it was found that 33 percent of Brits think the government's response to the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak has been too focused on protecting the country's economy in comparison to people's health. On the other hand, 16 percent feel the government is giving too much emphasis to protecting people's health over the economy, but 42 percent believe the government has got the balance about right. For further information about the coronavirus pandemic, please visit our dedicated Facts and Figures page.

Underlying data from the publication BIS Economics Paper no 9: Economic Growth [URN 10/1213]

The dissertation examines how political parties, unimpeded by the set of factors (namely, rational expectations among economic agents, the organization of the domestic economy, and the evolution of the world economy) that limit the ability of governments to manage the short-term economic cycle, play a central and sustained role in the formulation of economic strategies designed to shape the supply side of the economy, thi s is, the provision of input factors, capital and labor. Whereas right-wing cabinets trust to private agents the determination of the optimal levels of savings and investment, left-wing governments rely on the public sector. To validate this model, the dissertation examines the public provision of fixed capital, the level of public spending in human capital formation (through general education and vocational training), the nature of the governmental strategies towards the public business sector, and tax policy, for all OECD nations from 1960 to 1990. The quantitative analysis is then followed by the historical examination of the political and economic strategies of two very dissimilar cases- -the Spanish socialist government and the British conservative cabinet in the eighties--in order to capture the dynamic process through which partisan governments develop their preferred economic policies. In both cases, parties are shown to optimize their goals along two dimensions, which in turn affect the timing, nature and success of the partisan economic policies: on the one hand, the economic environment, this is, the set of constraints imposed by the organization of the domestic economy as well as the international fluctuations of the business cycle; on the other hand, an electoral dimension, since economic strategies are, first, timed to the popularity standing of the cabinet, and, second, geared to build a winning electoral coalition behind the party in office. The dissertation concludes by discussing the key role the partisan model should play in the field of comparative political economy as well as the remedies it brings to the theoretical and empirical weaknesses of previous theoretical models of economic policy-making.

Underlying data from BIS Economics Paper no.11 'The economic consequences for the UK and the EU of completing the Single Market' [URN 11/517].

In 2024/25 the government of the United Kingdom had an expenditure of almost 1.29 trillion British pounds, compared with 1.23 trillion in the previous financial year. Between 2010/11 and 2019/20, the UK's government spending increased at a relatively stable pace before a sudden spike in spending in the 2020s. After spending just under 889 billion pounds in 2019/20, government spending surpassed 1.1 trillion the following year, due to the high level of public spending that occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic. Main outlays of the UK government The government is expected to spend approximately 379 billion British pounds on social protection in the 2025/26 financial year, followed by 277 billion on health, and 146 billion on education. As a share of GDP, social protection spending has consistently been the government's main outlay for several decades. Health spending has, however, become far more prominent. In the late 1970s, the government spent more on education, and defence than it did on health, with health spending increasing from 3.9 percent in 1978/79, to 8.4 percent by 2024/25. Defence spending in particular was cut significantly after the end of the Cold War, although geopolitical instability is forcing the government to rethink these cuts. Spending cuts politically dangerous for Labour Since coming to power in July 2024, the current Labour government has seen its popularity plummet drastically, with approval ratings similar to the unpopular Conservative government it replaced. Part of the reason for this have been Labour's attempts to reform aspects of the UK's welfare system. Shortly after winning the last election, Labour announced cuts to winter fuel payments for pensioners, a policy they paid dearly for in political capital and one that was reversed by June 2025. An attempt to push through further reforms was effectively defeated the following month, leaving the government in a tricky fiscal situation for the next budget.

Over the summer of 2013, the Cabinet Office started to develop the processes to support the maintenance of a dynamic NII. We can now launch a first iteration which will be the basis for user feedback and the identification of additional datasets. The processes for defining the NII can be broadly outlined as follows: a) Identifying and maintaining an inventory of data held by government; b) Prioritising data to be included in the NII; and c) Supporting organisations to release data, where possible. The Cabinet Office has developed an over-arching framework for the NII to be used as a “thinking tool” in engaging with the NII. Without this framework it will be hard to communicate the function and benefits of the NII. The framework combines a high-level categorisation of government data and characteristics of different types of data to provide a framework for the processes and identify early candidates for inclusion in the NII. The data themes in the framework for the NII relate primarily to characteristics of the organisation which hold the data and also reflect the high level categories of data in the G8 Open Data Charter. Transparency was one of the key three priorities of the recent G8, chaired by the UK where all G8 Leaders signed up to a set of principles specified in an Open Data Charter. G8 members identified 14 high-value areas, jointly regarded as data that will help unlock the economic potential of open data, support and encourage innovation, and provide greater accountability to improve our democracies. The UK has aligned these categories to inform the creation of its NII. Datasets listed against Transport and Infrastructure include datasets owned and held by government agencies, ALBs and the wider transport industry, reflecting the organisation of information in the sector. Overlaying these data themes, we have analysed user feedback, ODUG benefits cases, applications and services which successfully use government data, and expert feedback to develop 4 primary uses of data. These are: a) Location: Geospatial data which can inform mapping and planning. b) Performance and Delivery: Data which shows how effectively public bodies and services are fulfilling their public tasks and the delivery of policy. c) Fiscal: Government spend, procurement and contractual data as well as data about the financial management of public sector activities. This also includes data that government holds about companies which may be of value to users. d) Operational: Data about the operational structure, placement of public service delivery points and the nature of the resources available within each of them.

This dataset contains gender pay gap figures for the GLA, large employers in London and estimates for all employees in London.

The gender pay gap is the difference in the average hourly wage of all men and women across a workforce. If women do more of the less well paid jobs within an organisation than men, the gender pay gap is usually bigger.

The UK government publish gender pay gap figures for all employers with 250 or more employees. A cut of this dataset that only shows employers that are registered in London can be found below.

Read a report by the Local Government Association (LGA) that summarises the mean and median pay gaps in local authorities, as well as the distribution of staff across pay quartiles.

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

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

United Kingdom LG: RC: PI: OI: Attributable to Insurance Policy Holders data was reported at 0.000 GBP mn in Jun 2018. This stayed constant from the previous number of 0.000 GBP mn for Mar 2018. United Kingdom LG: RC: PI: OI: Attributable to Insurance Policy Holders data is updated quarterly, averaging 0.000 GBP mn from Mar 1987 (Median) to Jun 2018, with 126 observations. United Kingdom LG: RC: PI: OI: Attributable to Insurance Policy Holders data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by Office for National Statistics. The data is categorized under Global Database’s United Kingdom – Table UK.AB045: ESA10: Resources and Uses: Local Government: Primary Income.

Understanding Society, the UK Household Longitudinal Study, is a longitudinal survey of the members of approximately 40,000 households (at Wave 1) in the United Kingdom. The overall purpose of Understanding Society is to provide high quality longitudinal data about subjects such as health, work, education, income, family, and social life to help understand the long term effects of social and economic change, as well as policy interventions designed to impact upon the general well-being of the UK population. The Understanding Society main survey sample consists of a large General Population Sample plus three other components: the Ethnic Minority Boost Sample, the former British Household Panel Survey sample and the Immigrant and Ethnic Minority Boost Sample.

DWP Benefit Data from Doorda provides detailed information on benefit claimants in the UK, sourced directly from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). This dataset is useful for social policy analysis, local government, economic research, and risk & demographic profiling.

Abstract

The Labour Force Survey (LFS) is a study of the employment circumstances of the UK population. It is the largest household study in the UK and provides the official measures of employment and unemployment.The first Labour Force Survey (LFS) in the United Kingdom was conducted in 1973, under the terms of a Regulation derived from the Treaty of Rome. The provision of information for the Statistical Office of the European Communities (SOEC) continued to be one of the reasons for carrying out the survey on an annual basis. SOEC co-ordinated information from labour force surveys in the member states in order to assist the EC in such matters as the allocation of the Social Fund. The survey was carried out biennially from 1973 to 1983 and was increasingly used by UK government departments to obtain information which would assist in the framing of social and economic policy. By 1983 it was being used by the Employment Department (now the Department for Work and Pensions) to obtain information which was not available from other sources or was only available for Census years. From 1984 the survey was carried out annually, and since that time the LFS has consisted of two elements:

• a quarterly survey conducted in Great Britain throughout the year, in which each sampled address was called on five times at quarterly intervals, and which yielded about 15,000 responding households in every quarter;
• a 'boost' survey in the spring quarter (March-May), which produced interviews at over 44,000 households in Great Britain and over 4,000 households in Northern Ireland.

Users should note that only the data from the spring quarter and the 'boost' survey were included in the annual datasets for public release, and that only data from 1975-1991 are available from the UK Data Archive. The depositor recommends only considered use of data for 1975 and 1977 (SNs 1757 and 1758), as the concepts behind the definitions of economic activity changed and are not comparable with later years. Also the survey methodology was being developed at the time and so the estimates may not be reliable enough to use.

During 1991 the survey was developed, so that from spring 1992 the data were made available quarterly, with a quarterly sample size approximately equivalent to that of the previous annual data. The Quarterly Labour Force Survey series therefore superseded the annual LFS series, and is held at the Data Archive under GN 33246.

The study is being conducted by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), the government's largest producer of statistics. They compile independent information about the UK's society and economy which provides evidence for policy and decision making, and for directing resources to where they are needed most. The ten-yearly census, measures of inflation, the National Accounts, and population and migration statistics are some of our highest-profile outputs.

Geographic coverage

The whole country.

Analysis unit

• Individuals
• Families/households

Universe

• Households
• All persons normally resident in private households in the United Kingdom

Kind of data

Sample survey data [ssd]

Sampling procedure

Stratified multi-stage sample; for further details see annual reports. Until 1983 two sampling frames were used; in England, Northern Ireland and Wales, the Valuation Roll provided the basis for a sample which, in England and Wales, included all 69 metropolitan districts, and a two-stage selection from among the remaining non-metropolitan districts. In Northern Ireland wards were the primary sampling units. In Scotland, the Address File (i.e. post codes) was used as the basis for a stratified sample.From 1983 the Postoffice Address File has been used instead of the Valuation Roll in England and Wales. In 1984 sample rotation was introduced along with a panel element, the quarterly survey, which uses a two-stage clustered sample design.

Sampling deviation

One of the limitations of the LFS is that the sample design provides no guarantee of adequate coverage of any industry, as the survey is not industrially stratified. The LFS coverage also omits communal establishments, except NHS housing, students in halls of residence and at boarding schools. Members of the armed forces are only included if they live in private accommodation. Also, workers under 16 are not covered.

Mode of data collection

Face-to-face [f2f]

Research instrument

All questions in the specification are laid out using the same format. Some questions (for instance USUWRKM) have a main group routed to them, but subsets of this group are asked variations of the question. In such cases the main routing is at the foot of the question as usual, and the subsets are listed separately above it, with the individual aspect of the routing indented slightly from the left of the page.

Response rate

Method of calculating response rates The response rate indicates how many interviews were achieved as a proportion of those eligible for the survey. The formula used is as follows: RR = (FR + PR)/(FR + PR + OR + CR + RHQ + NC + RRI*) where RR = response rate, FR = full response, PR = partial response, OR = outright refusal, CR = circumstantial refusal, RHQ = refusal to HQ, NC = non contact, RRI = refusal to re-interview, *applies to waves two to five only.

Sampling error estimates

As with any sample survey, the results of the Labour Force Survey are subject to sampling errors. In addition, the results of any sample survey are affected by non-sampling errors, i.e. the whole variety of errors other then those due to sampling.