Population

Using the power of linked data to understand factors preventing people from working

Crowds of people walking through a busy street

Nearly 9 million working-age people in the UK were not working or looking for work – that is, economically inactive – from May to July 2023. This figure includes more than 2.5 million people inactive due to long-term sickness, an increase of half-a-million people since before the COVID-19 pandemic. Emma Rourke explains how linked, population-level data can improve our understanding of the interplay between health and work, with the goal of improving the wellbeing of individuals and the economy.

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Behaviour shifts and the implications for migration statistics

Image of departures and arrivals sign at Heathrow

Net migration to the UK has been running at record levels. Driven by a rise in people coming for work, increasing numbers of students and world events, the patterns of migration have changed with more arrivals from outside of the EU than in the previous decade. Emma Rourke explains how the ONS is interpreting these behavioural changes, how they feed into the latest data and the implications for other population statistics. 

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Putting census data to greater work

Image of a person inputting data

Our drive to make census statistics available in innovative ways has seen a suite of exciting new products released this year. With customisable maps and datasets, we have broken new ground for official statistics. In the latest development, Jen Woolford explains how census data is being put to even greater work by improving statistical insight on the most pressing social challenges of the day.

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Help shape the future of population and migration statistics

Understanding the UK's population is vital

For the past four months the ONS has been running a consultation on the future of population and migration statistics. We’ve been asking users of our statistics what they want in a transformed system and whether our proposals meet their needs. With one week to go, Jen Woolford explains why it’s vital everyone has their say.

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Census 2021 gender identity estimates: progress and next steps

One of our key roles as statisticians is to paint a picture of society according to how people describe themselves. Our responsibility is to keep pace with how society defines itself and to make our statistics available as promptly as possible. Data from Census 2021 are so rich and complex that the publication of the first results is far from the end of our work. Sometimes we can unearth unexpected patterns as we undertake further analysis and gather feedback from users about their findings. Emma Rourke explains what we know about census gender identity data so far.

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