Labour market
"View frequencies, conduct simple online tabulations, produce graphs..."
Whilst there is a wealth of data on the labour market, a number of studies are regarded as 'key' in the UK – either through their subject/geographical coverage, their use of standard measures, their longevity, their usage among the research community or because they are used to create 'official' figures.
The key individual-level surveys on the labour market are the Labour Force Surveys (LFS) and related dataset, the Annual Population Survey (APS). These are cross-sectional repeated survey data. Other datasets may be of relevance depending on the nature of the research question. For example, the Health Survey for England (HSE) will be useful for researching relationships between health and labour market variables. The Family Resources Survey (FRS) contains information about income, benefits and assets as well as a range of labour market variables.
The British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) is a key resource in this field for researchers who wish to study individual change over time using panel data.
The majority of the data described are known as 'raw', 'primary' or 'source' data in the sense that they represent information that has been collected 'first-hand'; they are original data sources which may then be used for 'secondary' analysis by researchers not involved in the data collection process. The majority of these data are anonymised because they describe the attitudes, behaviour, circumstances and personal details of the individuals being studied. These types of data are heavily used by the academic and government research communities.
The UK Data Service provides access to the following primary data sources:
| Study name | Coverage | Topics |
| 'Brain Drain' Debate in the United Kingdom, c.1950-1970 | 1950-1970 (qualitative) Canada, UK and United States |
scientific migration popular science engineering cold war |
| British Election Study Six-Wave Panel Survey, 2005-2009 | Electors resident in Great Britain during 2005-2009 | employment income occupational status socio-economic status |
| British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) | UK 1991-2009 (longitudinal) |
employment status income job satisfaction employment history industry/occupation |
| British Social Attitudes Survey | GB Annually from 1983 (except in 1988 and 1992) |
ILO measures |
| Changing Organisational Forms and the Re-shaping of Work : Case Study Interviews, 1999-2002 | 1999-2002 (qualitative) England and Scotland |
inter-organisational relations sub-contracting trade unions public and private sector management |
| Employees' Awareness, Knowledge and Exercise of Employment Rights Survey, 2005 | People of working age who were employees or had been employees in the previous two years and living in private households in Great Britain | economic activity employment income unemployed wages |
| Eurostat New Cronos | 1960-continuing monthly, quarterly, annual country level data (data availability depends on series and country selected) |
employment |
| Family Resources Survey | GB Annually from 1992 |
ILO measures earnings/savings pensions travel to work health income/assets benefits |
| IMF World Economic Outlook | 1980-continuing Annual country level data |
unemployment rate employment |
| Labour Force Survey |
UK |
ILO measures training at work work history hours worked earnings (1992+) education health/disability |
| Life Opportunities Survey | UK Longitudinal since 2009 |
ILO measures work history hours worked income disabilities care work benefits |
| Market for Migrant Domestic and Sex Workers, 2002-2006 | 2002-2006 (qualitative) Czech Republic, Hong Kong, Spain, Thailand, UK |
employment domestic workers gender sexuality sex workers |
| OECD Main Economic Indicators | 1955-continuing monthly, quarterly and annual country level data (data can be patchy) |
earnings labour costs labour productivity employees unemployment employment status vacancies |
| Qualitative Investigation of the Lives and Labour Market Experiences of People with Multiple Problems and Needs, 2001-2002 | 2001-2002 (qualitative) England |
education employment statutory agencies training unemployement welfare-to-work |
| Small Firms and their Employees, 2003-2006 | Managers and employees in small firms based in the East and West Midlands, surveyed during 2005-2006 | employment industrial relations procedures labour force recruitment wages policy workplace |
| Socio-technical Systems and Call Centres : a Case Study Investigation, 1999-2000 | 1999-2000 (qualitative) Scotland |
recruitment training |
| Understanding Society | UK 2009-2010 (longitudinal) |
employment status income job satisfaction employment industry/occupation classification |
| UNIDO Industrial Statistics Databases | 1963-continuing annual country level data |
establishments employees wages and salaries female employees all broken down by industry (available at ISIC code Level 2, 3, and 4) |
| United Kingdom Time Use Survey | UK 2000 |
ILO measures earnings hours worked travel to work work/life balance childcare volunteering/caring |
| Workplace Employment Relations Survey: Time-Series Dataset, 1980-2004 |
1980-2004 |
employment labour force part-time employment shift work wages women's employment |
| World Development Indicators | 1960-continuing annual country level data |
child employment employees employers population ratio unemployment part-time work vulnerable employment armed forces youth tax/contributions wage and salary |
Other research communities are less interested in these primary, and predominantly individual-level, data and are more likely to be consumers of information that has been published at the aggregate-level (e.g. tables of data where results are aggregated to health authority level, or region or country). Whilst we hold some aggregate-level data of interest to labour market researchers – the cross-national Eurostat for example and the World Bank databases – the UK Data Service is only one of many online resources that provide access to published data based on the labour market theme.
Other key data publishers
- Neighbourhood Statistics
- Nomis Official Labour Market Statistics
- Office for National Statistics - Labour Market
- Office for National Statistics datasets and reference tables - Labour Market
- UK National Statistics Publication Hub - Labour Market
Government and voluntary sector
- Department for Business Innovation and Skills
- Eurofound
- European Commission Eurostat - Labour Market
- International Labour Organization: Key Indicators of the Labour Market
- Northern Ireland Labour Market
- OECD Employment and Labour Market Statistics
- Scottish Government Labour Market Data
- South West Observatory Labour Market Data
- Welsh Government Economic and Labour Market Statistics
Academic centres and services
The UK Data Service has a faceted search application called Discover where you can search and browse our data collections, support guides, case studies, and related publications.
Browsing for labour market data
Use Discover to retrieve a list of labour-market-related studies. This will provide a list of studies with links to the catalogue records and related materials.
Searching for labour market data
Use Discover to retrieve a list of labour-market-related studies by searching the catalogue using a free-text search on a labour-related term. You can refine your search by Country, Kind of data, Spatial unit, Observation unit, Depositor or Date. This will provide a list of studies with links to the catalogue records and related materials.
Searching using the UK Data Archive's HASSET thesaurus
Use the UK Data Archive Humanities and Social Science Electronic Thesaurus (HASSET) to search for keywords and explore their narrower, broader or related terms, for example:
search on the term 'unemployment' in the thesaurus
search on the term 'economic activity' in the thesaurus
Looking at variables on Labour Market Data
Researchers can retrieve a list of labour market-related studies by using the UK Data Service Variable and Question Bank search. This searches on variable labels and value labels within a dataset.
Downloading and ordering labour market data
Registered users can download or order most data for offline analysis. Most survey data are available to download in standard formats, for example, SPSS, Stata and tab-delimited. Further information on how to access and download data is available from our how to access page.
Using the following online data analysis tools researchers can view frequencies, conduct simple online tabulations and produce graphs and subsets for a selection of labour market related data. View the following movie tutorials to show how to analyse labour market data using these tools.
Nesstar
Use the Nesstar analysis software to select, reformat and download union representation by industry using the Labour Force Survey.
Accessing the labour Force Survey data via Nesstar
Beyond 20/20
Use the Beyond 20/20 analysis software to select, reformat and download unemployment data from the World Bank World Development Indicators for a selection of countries from 1991-2010.
Accessing World Bank World Development Indicators data via Beyond 20/20
ESDS Qualidata Online
Use ESDS Qualidata Online to view interviews and related materials from four of our classic sociology collections.
Discovering the experience of being an apprentice and youth employment in post-war Britain
The UK Data Service has a library of case studies demonstrating how our data have been used. You can identify uses according to topic, data type and educational course.
Use Discover to view our case studies on Employment and labour.This will provide a list with links to case studies and other related materials
See the following for some ideas for research using labour market data:
The labour market impacts on a range of social and economic aspects of life in the UK and is well studied for policy purposes, and well represented in surveys conducted by and for policy makers. The Labour Force Survey contains the widest range of employment and training questions.
Research ideas: Comparing unemployment rates
The global economic crisis has had an effect on everyone but the consequences have varied from country to country. In many European countries we have seen sovereign debt crises, high unemployment rates and severe austerity cuts which have led to protests in Greece, Spain and Portugal.
Research ideas: Using qualitative data to explore the the labour market
The UK Data Service holds a variety of studies that deal with the labour market and have a qualitative element. This includes projects based entirely upon qualitative methods as well as collections that use a mixed methods approach. In addition some of the older ‘classic’ studies conducted in the 1970s and 1980s investigated work and labour relations.
Research ideas: Using longitudinal data to explore the labour market
Longitudinal studies are especially useful for analysing labour market trajectories because of their repeated observation design. They show how people move (or don’t move) between different employment statuses through their working lives.
The UK Data Service helps to support users of data by providing:
- thematic guides identifying key datasets in the area of labour market - use Discover to browse guides on labour market data
- a library of case studies demonstrating how UK Data Service data have been used - use Discover to browse case studies using labour market data
- a publications database listing papers published using government data and a list of recently registered uses of the government surveys - browse details of some current usage of labour data
- major studies pages, offering guidance on how to use specific government surveys, from choosing a dataset to reporting a publication
- self-study software and good practice guides
Other resources on labour market data
Centre for Economic and Social Inclusion
Centre for Economic Performance
Department for Business Innovation and Skills
Department for Work and Pensions - Research and statistics
Joseph Rowntree Foundation
Low Pay Commission
Skills Development Scotland's Labour Market Research Team Research Online
Survey Question Bank - Economic activity
Survey Question Bank - Working conditions
The Institute for Employment Studies
The Migration Observatory - The Labour Market Effects of Immigration
UK Commission for Employment and Skills
Warwick Institute for Employment Research
Welsh Economy and Labour Market Evaluation and Research Centre (WELMERC)