Business Register and Employment Survey (BRES) provisional results: 2014

• Between 2009 (when the survey began) and 2014, the number of employees in the UK is estimated to have increased by 1.321 million (4.8%) to 28.7 million. The period between 2013 and 2014, accounts for two-thirds of this growth in the number of employees (0.873 million), with the East of England, the South West, Scotland and London showing particularly strong growth

• After an initial fall, the levels of employees in the northern regions, the South West and Scotland have only just surpassed the number of employees seen in 2009

• Between 2009 and 2014, the largest increase in employees has been in the professional, scientific and technical industries, closely followed by business administration and support services. In particular, business administration has seen a big increase in temporary employment agency activities over this period

• The professional, scientific and technical industry, which has shown particularly strong growth since 2009, can be seen to have a strong presence in London and the South East, with 8 of the 20 local authorities with the highest share of employees in this industry being in the South East and 6 in London. Conversely, 9 of the 20 local authorities with the lowest share of employees in this industry were in Wales

• Public administration and property were the only industry groups to show a fall in the number of employees between 2013 and 2014

• Between 2013 and 2014, 80% of local authority districts saw a decrease in the number of public sector employees, with 84% showing a decrease between 2009 and 2014. In contrast, 94% of local authority districts saw an increase in the number of private sector employees, with 88% growing between 2009 and 2014

The Business Register and Employment Survey (BRES) is the official source of employee and employment estimates by detailed geography and industry. It is also used to update structural information on the Inter-Departmental Business Register, the main sampling frame for business surveys used to produce UK official statistics.

This statistical bulletin focuses on the strengths of BRES, giving employee estimates by region level and below and by broad industry group and below. There is also a section that looks at public and private sector estimates of employees. Many of the analyses contained in this bulletin make comparisons with 2009, the year that BRES was introduced.

The survey collects employment information from businesses across the whole of the UK economy for each site that they operate. This allows us to produce workplace-based employee and employment estimates by detailed geography and industry, full-time or part-time workers and whether the business is in the public or the private sector.

Due to the survey’s large sample size (approximately 80,000 businesses), BRES is able to produce good quality estimates for detailed breakdowns by industry and geography. Indeed, no other ONS survey of regional and sub-regional employment data can provide the same level of industry detail. Furthermore, being a business survey, the quality of this industry data is very good and is recommended in preference to industry data from household surveys such as the Annual Population Survey. BRES provides both employee and employment data and is particularly recommended for analysis of employee data. All analysis in this bulletin is for data on employees.

The employment data in BRES is the number of employees added to the number of working owners (for example, sole proprietors and partners). However, BRES does not cover the very small businesses neither registered for VAT nor PAYE, which make up a small part of the economy. As a result there is a difference between the BRES UK estimate of employment and the estimate from the ONS workforce jobs series. So for total employment figures, other ONS sources such as Workforce Jobs (regional) and the Annual Population Survey (sub-regional) can provide fuller coverage of total employment, albeit with a less detailed industrial breakdown.

Since BRES is based on a sample of businesses, it can be affected by sampling variability. In particular, the quality of the estimates may deteriorate for smaller geographies and this should be taken into account when making inferences about the figures. Quality measures accompany the BRES tables on our website.

Between 2009 and 2014, the number of employees in the UK is estimated to have increased by 1.321 million (4.8%) to 28.7 million. The period between 2013 and 2014 (0.873 million) accounts for two-thirds of this rise.

Figure 1 shows that, since 2009, the percentage increase in employees varies between regions. London, for example, has shown very strong growth between 2009 and 2014. The midlands, Wales, the South East and the East of England on the other hand have also shown growth, but at a slower rate. The north (North East, North West and Yorkshire and The Humber), the South West, Scotland and Northern Ireland have seen a larger initial fall in employees over this 5 year period, only surpassing the 2009 level of employees in the most recent results for 2014.

Despite the large increase in the number of employees in London since 2009, the East of England (4.4%) and the South West (3.9%) have started to grow at a faster rate than London (3.8%) over the past year.

Between 2013 and 2014, the industries showing the largest absolute growth in the East of England were the accommodation and food services industry and the professional, scientific and technical industry. The industries with the largest growth in the South West were the professional, scientific and technical industry and the business administration and support services industry.

Figure 2: Percentage change in employees between 2009 to 2014 for London and the rest of the UK by industry.

Source: Business Register and Employment Survey (BRES) - Office for National Statistics

Although the growth by industry type for each region can vary, London in particular exhibits some characteristics different from the rest of the UK as shown in Figure 2. For example, London has shown stronger percentage growth between 2009 and 2014 in 16 of the 18 broad industry groups, with the rest of the UK only having stronger growth in agriculture and motor trades.

A number of industries have shown an increase in the number of employees in London, despite the numbers falling for the rest of the UK. Construction and finance and insurance activities are examples of these. Interestingly, while the rest of the UK has shown a large fall in public administration, London has only a small fall.

Between 2009 and 2014, the public administration and defence and construction industry groups have seen the largest percentage falls in employees. Public administration and defence continued its downward trend between 2013 and 2014.

The largest increase in employees since 2009 has been in the professional, scientific and technical industry group, closely followed by business administration and support services activities. Both of these industries also showed strong growth between 2013 and 2014.

The following section looks at these industries in more detail.

Figure 4: Industries that make up professional, scientific and technical, 2014

UK

Source: Business Register and Employment Survey (BRES) - Office for National Statistics

Between 2009 and 2014, the top 3 growing industries in absolute terms within the professional, scientific and technical broad industry group were management consultancy activities, activities of head offices and architectural and engineering activities.

Figure 5: Industries that make up business administration and support services, 2014

UK

Source: Business Register and Employment Survey (BRES) - Office for National Statistics

The top 3 growing industries in absolute terms within the business administration broad industry group between 2009 and 2014 were temporary employment agencies, business support service activities and combined facilities support activities. Almost half of the increase in business administration activities can be attributed to growth in this industry between 2013 and 2014.

Public administration and defence; compulsory social security showed the largest decrease in employees between 2009 and 2014, while activities of head offices; management consultancy activities showed the largest increase.

The analysis in this section focuses on changes in employees at a local authority (LA) district level. Although regional estimates show interesting patterns and shifts over time, they can mask some of the sub-regional variation in the geographical distribution of employees. For example, growth in the East of England, which has shown the strongest growth in the number of employees between 2013 and 2014, has been driven by growth in the South Cambridgeshire and Luton LA. Similarly, the strong growth seen in the South West and Scotland has been driven by the Bristol and Glasgow LAs respectively.

Since the overall regional growth can be greatly affected by the growth in a small number of LAs, Figure 7 looks at the percentage of LAs within a region that have shown an increase or a decrease in the number of employees. This gives an indication of how well the growth is spread across all LAs within the region. For example, Yorkshire and The Humber is the region with the second highest proportion of LAs showing an increase in the number of employees. However, when looking at the region as a whole, it showed the seventh largest growth in employees. This is because growth in employees in Yorkshire and The Humber is spread relatively evenly across LAs compared with some of the other regions.

Figure 8 shows that the largest decrease in employees was seen in Ribble Valley (North West), while the largest increase was seen in Tunbridge Wells (South East).

Looking at the detailed geographical distribution of different industries can reveal some interesting results. In the section below, we compare the manufacturing and professional, scientific and technical industry groups, which show contrasting geographical distributions.

Figure 9: Percentage of employees within local authority districts that are engaged in specific industries, 2014

Great Britain

Figure 9 shows the difference in the distribution of employees between the manufacturing and the professional, scientific and technical industries, with the latter having a greater presence in London and the South East and the former having a stronger presence outside of these regions.

In terms of the proportion of jobs that were professional, scientific and technical, 9 of the bottom 20 LAs in Great Britain were in Wales, notably Merthyr Tydfil and Torfaen, which were the second and third smallest proportions respectively (the Isles of Scilly in the South West had the smallest). On the other hand, 8 of the top 20 LAs were in the South East and 6 in London. The top 3 were all in London, followed by South Oxfordshire in the South East.

In terms of the proportion of jobs that were in manufacturing, all of the bottom 20 LAs were in the south, with London representing 13 of these. In contrast, the top 20 LAs were more evenly spread across the country, with 6 in the North West, 5 in the East Midlands and 3 in both Wales and the South West. The North West had 4 of the top 5, with the additional LA being in Wales.

his section below looks at the regional distribution of employment for industries that have shown the biggest rise and fall in employees since 2009.

Public administration and defence

This includes activities of a governmental nature, normally carried out by the public administration.

Public administration and defence has seen a long-term decrease in every region, particularly in the East Midlands, the North East and the East of England. London, Scotland and Northern Ireland have seen a small increase this year.

Business administration and support services

This section includes a variety of activities that support general business operations. It differs from professional, scientific and technical in that their primary purpose is not the transfer of specialised knowledge.

Business administration and support services have seen significant growth in all regions since 2009, growing by over 20% in the North East, the East Midlands, the West Midlands, London and Yorkshire and The Humber. Until 2013, Wales had shown a decline, but due to significant growth between 2013 and 2014, the number of employees in Wales is now also above 2009 levels.

Professional, scientific and technical

This includes specialised professional, scientific and technical activities. These activities require a high degree of training and make specialised knowledge and skills available to users.

Professional, scientific and technical services have seen significant growth since 2009, growing by over 20% in the East of England, the North West, the West Midlands and London. Growth particularly rebounded in the East Midlands, which by 2011 had declined by 14.9% but now has grown by 18.9% compared with 2009. The North East showed a decline between 2013 and 2014 and, despite a large increase in 2014, is still behind 2009.

Figure 14: Percentage of public sector employees in local authority districts; 2009 and 2014

Great Britain

Figure 14 shows the number of public sector employees as a percentage of total employees by local authority for 2009 and 2014. This clearly shows that there has been a substantial decrease in the proportion of public sector jobs for many local authorities. This is due to a combination of a decrease in the number of public sector employees over this period, along with an increase in the number of private sector employees.

During the 2013 to 2014 period, every region has continued to see a fall in public sector employees, with the South West, the East of England and Yorkshire and The Humber showing the largest percentage falls. Since 2009, London and Wales have shown the smallest percentage decreases in the number of employees in the public sector.

In contrast, employees in the private sector have grown in every region between 2013 and 2014, with strong percentage growth in Scotland, East of England and the South West. In fact, the growth in employees in the private sector has grown more than the fall in employees in the public sector in every region, resulting in a net increase in employees in every region.

Between 2013 and 2014, 80% of local authority districts saw a decrease in the number of public sector employees, with 84% showing a decrease between 2009 and 2014. In contrast, 94% of local authority districts saw an increase in the number of private sector employees, with 88% growing between 2009 and 2014.

When looking at changes in the number of employees in the public and private sectors, it is worth noting that these estimates can be distorted as a result of changes to the public or private designation of large businesses. For example, the transport and storage (including postal) industry in the public sector declined in 2014 due to the re-privatisation of the Royal Mail. Similarly, the finance and insurance industry in the public sector declined in 2014 due to the privatisation of one of the big banks. Excluding these industries from the regional figures showed that the public sector grew in London between 2013 and 2014 with everywhere else decreasing.