National Statistical

It’s no secret that the economy is changing, seemingly faster than ever, and with it the types of businesses and jobs that form part of it are evolving too. In response to this, the Office for National Statistics needs to ensure that its classification systems for occupations and businesses remain up-to-date and relevant. In today’s blog Fiona James shares how the ONS is updating the classification systems, including the consultation just launched on occupations.

Reviews of statistical classifications might sound dull as ditchwater, but recently the chair of the UK Esports Teams Committee hailed our intention to gives e-sports its own classification as “a significant step for the industry” which brings it “closer to being recognised alongside traditional sport.” So what’s the excitement all about, and what precisely are we reviewing?

What are the SIC and the SOC?

The Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) is a classification framework that helps us understand the UK’s economy and how it changes. Because we have for a long time collected data on what activities organisations undertake, whether it’s construction, manufacturing or one of an increasingly diverse range of services, we need to classify those activities to produce statistical summaries of things like output, employment and productivity in those sectors. Likewise, the Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) is a separate framework that helps us understand the UK’s varied workforce, and what sorts of work people actually do.

To understand the difference between the two classification systems, let’s take the example of senior accountant in the finance department of a car factory. In our employment statistics classified by industry, that person would show up under ‘manufacture of motor vehicles’, as that’s what the firm does; and, in the figures classified by occupation, they might show up among the ‘chartered and certified accountants’. Both have a series of increasingly detailed codes to give more granular detail: for example, in a different example, in the SIC the specific category ‘public houses and bars’ is part of ‘beverage serving activities’, which comes under the broader ‘food and beverage service activities’, which in turn is part of the top level ‘accommodation and food service activities’ sector.

These frameworks are not only vital for our own statistics, they have wider public benefit too: for example, UK Visas and Immigration use the SOC to grant Skilled Worker visas according to occupational shortages within the UK.

Reviewing SIC and SOC

As the structure of the economy and the workforce evolve – whether new technology sectors such as e-sports or emerging jobs in areas like the green economy – so too the current versions of SIC and SOC – SIC 2007 and SOC 2020 respectively – must change in line.

On the SOC, we take an important step forward today with the launch of our consultation. We’re asking everyone who uses or is affected by occupational classification to help shape SOC 2030, ensuring it accurately reflects how people work today and in the future. We want to know which areas of SOC 2020 should be reviewed and updated, and why. This calls for responses on:

• occupations that have grown significantly and may need their own classification;
• occupations that have declined and could be combined with others; and
• new roles emerging from technological change, the green economy, or other developments.

We also want to check whether our current descriptions still reflect how jobs are performed or whether those need updating, to ensure that workers are correctly classified in our surveys to the right occupation.

It’s far too soon to say what new groups might be added to the SOC structure; but last time we updated it, in 2020, cyber-security professionals, coffee shop workers and data entry administrators were among the new groups added.

On the SIC, we’re at a more advanced stage. Early this month we gave an update to users on our revised proposals that had emerged from the consultation that has already taken place and have now shared our updated proposed SIC2026 framework. This has already attracted some attention in specialist industry websites for its proposal to include a couple of categories covering the burgeoning e-sports industry – ‘organisation of e-sports events’ and ‘other e-sports activities’. Other proposed changes include:

• splitting battery manufacture between those for hybrid and zero emission vehicles and other types of battery;
• splitting engine manufacture between motor vehicle engines and electric vehicle motors
• splitting out the repair and maintenance of traditional cars from those of hybrid and zero emission cars;
• creating splits to understand better the manufacture of gluten-free products, and meat substitutes.
• new financial categories to reflect specialisations in the UK economy, allowing us, for example, to split out bank and non-bank financial holding companies, as well as continuing to work with stakeholders to decide what additions are needed in terms of crypto asset categories.

Next steps

On the SIC, a UK Steering Group will approve and ratify the final version, following any further feedback, later this month. The delivery of the final SIC2026 publication is then scheduled for end-March 2026.

On the SOC, we have as I said launched our consultation today, and we’d encourage a wide range of users to get involved. Once that’s closed, we will publish a summary of responses and our proposed approach this summer. A Steering Group will be established to guide the revision process through to 2030.

So, to sum up, it’s clear that with new industries such as e-sports being recognised, and whatever new groups the occupational review adds, the ONS and the statistics that people rely on day-to-day, will continue to be relevant and up to date. A lot of hard work has gone into these updates already, and I’d like to thank not only all my ONS colleagues who’ve been involved, but also all the external stakeholders and those who have replied (or will do so) to our consultations.

Fiona James is Chief Data Officer and Director of Data Growth and Operations at the ONS.