Working from home statistics

Release date:
22 December 2017

You asked

If possible, I would like to know the trend in the past 10 years, or as long as the information is available,

  1. the number of people who work from home and their percentage in the working population;
  2. the percentage of people working from home by industries including the industry of computer software.

We said

I am writing in response to your freedom of information query asking for the following

  1. the number of people who work from home and their percentage of the working population;
  2. the percentage of people working from home by industries including the industry of computer software.

This information can be obtained from Labour Force Survey datasets. We provide a bespoke service for analysis that is not already published on our website. Special extracts and tabulations of data are available to order from our Social Surveys Division (subject to legal frameworks, disclosure control, resources and agreements of costs, where appropriate). Such enquiries should be made to socialsurveys@ons.gov.uk

As this information is already available to you via this route, we consider that s.21(1) applies to this request and the information does not have to be supplied under the terms of the Freedom of Information Act. S.21(1) is an absolute exemption and no consideration of the public interest test needs to be applied.

Another route would be to access the Labour Force Survey datasets at the UK Data Service if you are able to run your own analysis. You can access anonymised Labour Force Survey (LFS) datasets from the UK Data Service. Details of how to access the data can be found here - http://ukdataservice.ac.uk/get-data/how-to-access.aspx

Data can be downloaded free of charge for non-commercial purposes but if charges are applicable, you will be notified during the ordering process. Advice for commercial users - http://ukdataservice.ac.uk/get-data/how-to-access/registration.aspx#/tab-commercial-users -

Charges - http://ukdataservice.ac.uk/get-data/how-to-access/charges.aspx

List of LFS datasets at the UK Data Service -http://discover.ukdataservice.ac.uk/?q=labour+force+survey

LFS user guides- https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/methodologies/labourforcesurveyuserguidance

Making an FOI request

Everything you need to know about Freedom of Information and how to go about making a request.