Accredited official statistics

Off-Farm Income in England: 2023/24

Updated 22 May 2025

Applies to England

Introduction

This release uses information collected in the Farm Business Survey (FBS) to present data on Off-Farm Income for the 2023/24 survey year. Off-Farm Income is the gross annual income of the principal farmer and their spouse or common law partner from any employment, self-employment or investments not related to the farm. It also includes any pensions, social payments and other off-farm income, for example, income from diversified activities set up independently of the farm business. Off-Farm Income does not include any capital gains, welfare payments made in kind (for example, free school meals), or windfall receipts and losses (for example, an inheritance).

This release includes data from 2021/22 to 2023/24. The 2023/24 survey year covers the third year of the Agricultural Transition period and relates to the 2023/24 Farm Business Income results. This release provides the proportion of farms earning each type of Off-Farm Income as well as average (median) total Off-Farm Income. Breakdowns are shown for farm type, farm business size, tenure type and economic performance band.

Defra are monitoring the role of Off-Farm Income within farm households as they move through the Agricultural Transition period. The survey module used to collect household income data has been under development for several years. Off-Farm Income data was collected between 2004/05 and 2014/15, however, these figures included Off-Farm Income generated by the entire household. The data for 2021/22 to 2023/24 only include Off-Farm Income generated by the farmer and their spouse, therefore, these data are not comparable to the previous figures without equivalisation. Equivalisation refers to adjusting household income to account for different household sizes and compositions. It requires data on the number of adults and children in the household; this data was collected in 2021/22 and 2023/24, but not in 2022/23. Therefore, this publication compares equivalised figures from 2021/22 and 2023/24, and unequivalised figures from 2022/23 and 2023/24.

Key Results

Sources of Off-Farm Income:

• Pensions and investments were the most common type of Off-Farm Income in 2023/24, each at 29% of farms.

• Of the income types recorded in the 2023/24 survey, the least common was green energy technologies, found in just 2% of farms.

Average Off-Farm Income:

• The average (median) total Off-Farm Income in England in 2023/24 was £12,500, an increase of 2% compared to 2022/23.

• When this median was equivalised to the level of a single adult household, it reduced to £8,300.

• Equivalised Off-Farm Income was highest in horticulture farms, whose average increased from £1,000 to £8,800 between 2021/22 and 2023/24.

• On average, dairy farms had the lowest equivalised Off-Farm Income, at £600; this was a fall of 77% compared to 2021/22.

Points which apply throughout

1. The Farm Business Survey is the source for all data presented in tables and charts unless otherwise stated.

2. All figures relate to England, unless otherwise stated, and cover a March to February fiscal year, with the most recent year shown ending in February 2024. Fiscal years are shown in YYYY/YY format, for example, the period of 1 March 2023 to 29 February 2024 is shown as 2023/24. To ensure consistency in harvest/crop year and commonality of subsidies within any one Farm Business Survey year, only farms which have accounting years ending between 31 December and 30 April are included in the survey. Aggregate results are presented in terms of an accounting year ending on the last day of February, which is the approximate average of all farms in the Farm Business Survey.

3. All figures have been rounded to the nearest £100. Percentages have been calculated on unrounded data and are rounded to the nearest 1%.

4. Due to the small sample sizes, pig and poultry farms have been combined into a single farm type.

5. The acronym ‘LFA’ refers to Less Favoured Area. These areas were established in 1975 to provide support to mountainous and hill farming areas. They are areas where the natural characteristics (geology, altitude, climate, short growing season, low soil fertility, or remoteness) make it difficult for farmers to compete.

6. The Off-Farm Income questions were only asked of a sub-sample of farms. Therefore, all years have been reweighted to maintain consistency with the survey population estimates. See section 4.1 for more detail.

7. Where dataset tables are referred to in the text, this refers to the ‘Off-Farm Income in England, 2023/24 - dataset’ file, which can be found on the publication landing page.

8. For the purpose of this publication, ‘farms’ refers to the primary household of the farm business who was interviewed as part of the FBS. Some farm businesses have multiple households linked to them, however, because the primary aim of the survey is to collect farm business data, it is not possible to collect data from all households, nor all adults within the primary household.

1 Sources of Off-Farm Income

Survey respondents were asked to report how much Off-Farm Income they received from the following sources: employment, self-employment, investments, pensions, social payments, income from green energy technologies, and other income. This income was reported as banded data. Due to small sample sizes, sensible medians could not be estimated from the data, therefore, this section provides data on the proportion of farms in England earning each type of Off-Farm Income.

Figure 1.1 Sources of Off-Farm Income for farms in England, 2022/23 and 2023/24

Source: Dataset table 1

Figure notes:
1. The legend is presented in the same order as the bars.
2. 95% Confidence Intervals have been presented to show the range where the true value is likely to lie and provides an indication of the degree of uncertainty of the estimate.

In 2023/24, 73% of farms had some type of Off-Farm Income, a rise of 2 percentage points compared to 2022/23. Pensions and investments were the most common type of Off-Farm Income, each at 29% of farms. This represented increases of 1 and 5 percentage points, respectively, compared to 2022/23.

Of the income types collected in the 2023/24 survey, the least common was green energy technologies, at just 2% of farms. However, this income type is only recorded as Off-Farm Income if the farmer has set up a separate green energy business, which is uncommon. Most farms which produce green energy do so as part of their diversification of the farm business, which is analysed in Chapter 5 of Farm Accounts in England.

1.1 Off-farm employment

Figure 1.2 Off-Farm Income from employment and self-employment by farm type in England, 2023/24

Source: Dataset table 1

Figure notes:
1. 95% Confidence Intervals have been presented to show the range where the true value is likely to lie and provides an indication of the degree of uncertainty of the estimate.
2. The symbol [c] indicates that results have been suppressed due to a small sample size; suppressed values are included in the ‘All farms’ averages.

Figure 1.2 shows the percentage of farms where the principal farmer or spouse earned Off-Farm Income from employment and self-employment in 2023/24. Specialist pig and poultry farms had the highest percentage of farms earning Off-Farm Income from employment, at 31%. The lowest percentage was in general cropping farms, at 12%.

The percentage of farms earning Off-Farm Income from self-employment in 2023/24 was consistently lower than from off-farm employment, with the highest percentage earning self-employment Off-Farm Income being lowland grazing livestock farms, at 25%. The lowest percentage of farms with self-employment Off-Farm Income was seen in specialist pig and poultry farms, at 6%. However, horticulture farms had fewer than five farms in the sample reporting Off-Farm Income from self-employment, therefore, the percentage of these farms has been suppressed.

Figure 1.3 Off-Farm Income from employment and self-employment by farm business size based on Standard Labour Requirement (SLR) in England, 2023/24

Source: Dataset table 1

Figure note: 95% Confidence Intervals have been presented to show the range where the true value is likely to lie and provides an indication of the degree of uncertainty of the estimate.

Farm business size is based on the estimated Standard Labour Requirement (SLR) for the business, rather than its land area. For more detail see Table 4.2.

Figure 1.3 shows that the percentage of farms with Off-Farm Income from self-employment increased as farm business size decreased, with part-time farms having the highest percentage, around a fifth (19%), and large farms having the lowest, 9%.

On the other hand, medium farms had the highest percentage of farms with Off-Farm Income from employment, at 26%. However, as with self-employment, large farm businesses had the lowest percentage of farms with Off-Farm Income from employment, 18%.

1.2 Investments and pensions

Figure 1.4 Off-Farm Income from investments and pensions by farm type in England, 2023/24

Source: Dataset table 1

Figure note: 95% Confidence Intervals have been presented to show the range where the true value is likely to lie and provides an indication of the degree of uncertainty of the estimate.

Figure 1.4 shows that the farm type with the lowest proportion earning Off-Farm Income from investments was specialist pig and poultry farms, at 18%. Investment Off-Farm Income was most common in general cropping and horticulture farms, both at 35%, with the proportion in horticulture farms increasing by 20 percentage points compared to 2022/23.

Off-Farm Income from pensions was also least common in specialist pig and poultry farms, at 11%, whereas it was most common in horticulture farms, at 58%.

Figure 1.5 Off-Farm Income from investments and pensions by farm economic performance in England, 2023/24

Source: Dataset table 1

Figure note: 95% Confidence Intervals have been presented to show the range where the true value is likely to lie and provides an indication of the degree of uncertainty of the estimate.

Figure 1.5 shows how farm economic performance affected the proportion of farms whose farmer or spouse had an income from investments and pensions in 2023/24. Economic performance is split into three bands: the bottom 25%, the middle 50% and the top 25% of performers. These bands are labelled as ‘Low’, ‘Medium’ and ‘High’ respectively.

The percentage of farms with Off-Farm Income from investments was similar across all performance bands; low performing farms had the lowest percentage, 26%, while medium and high performing farms were both at 30%.

On the other hand, the percentage of farms with Off-Farm Income from pensions decreased as performance increased; 21% of high performing farms had pension income in 2023/24, compared to 43% of low performing farms.

2 Total Off-Farm Income in England

Off-Farm Income is reported within the Farm Business Survey as banded data. The true value is estimated for each farm using statistical methods: Mean Constrained Integration over Brackets and Robust Pareto Midpoint Estimator. For more detail on these methods, see section 4.3. As a result of this methodology, confidence intervals tend to be relatively high, so results should be interpreted with caution.

The average (median) is presented twice, equivalised and unequivalised. Equivalisation adjusts the household income to account for different household sizes and compositions, in this case to the level of a single adult household. This allows for a more reliable comparison between households of different sizes. More information is in section 4.3. The number of adults and children in the household, which is required to equivalise income, was not collected in 2022/23. This section shows the 2023/24 data with the most recent comparable data, therefore, the unequivalised median is compared with 2022/23, while the equivalised median is compared with 2021/22.

As explained in the 2022/23 publication, there was a large increase in average Off-Farm Income between 2021/22 and 2022/23. While it is not possible to present equivalised incomes for 2022/23, based on the results presented below, we can assume that they would have been similar to the 2023/24 levels.

Figure 2.1 Median Off-Farm Income by farm type in England, 2021/22, 2022/23 and 2023/24

Source: Dataset table 2

Figure notes:
1. The legend is presented in the same order as the bars; for equivalised Off-Farm Income, 2021/22 and 2023/24 are shown, while 2022/23 and 2023/24 are shown for the unequivalised income.
2. 95% Confidence Intervals have been presented to show the range where the true value is likely to lie and provides an indication of the degree of uncertainty of the estimate.

Figure 2.1 shows that, in 2023/24, the average unequivalised Off-Farm Income was £12,500, which reduced to £8,300 after equivalisation. When comparing farm types, equivalised Off-Farm Income was highest in horticulture farms, at £8,800. Three other farm types, lowland grazing livestock, cereal and mixed farms, also had an average over £8,000. Dairy farms had by far the lowest equivalised Off-Farm Income, at £600.

Between 2021/22 and 2023/24 there was significant turnover in the sample; only around 50% of each year’s sample was present in both years. When comparing Off-Farm Income in the matched samples, the average for 2021/22 was around £800 higher than in the full sample, while the average for 2023/24 was around £100 higher. The turnover between 2022/23 and 2023/24 was much lower, with around 80% of the farms in each year’s sample present in both years.

Average equivalised Off-Farm Income at the all farm level more than doubled to £8,300 (an increase of 134%) between 2021/22 and 2023/24. However, the increase between the averages for the matched samples was lower, at 91%. The only farm type whose average fell between 2021/22 and 2023/24 was dairy farms; in 2023/24 their average was £600, a decrease of 77%. The largest percentage increase was seen in specialist pig and poultry farms, where the average rose from £300 to £5,800.

The differences in average unequivalised Off-Farm Income between 2022/23 and 2023/24 were much smaller; at the all farm level, the average rose by just 2%. The biggest increases were seen in horticulture, dairy and specialist pig and poultry farms, with the average for specialist pig and poultry farms rising from £1,500 to £8,700. All other farm types had differences of less than 4%.

Figure 2.2 Median Off-Farm Income by farm economic performance in England, 2021/22, 2022/23 and 2023/24

Source: Dataset table 2

Figure notes:
1. The legend is presented in the same order as the bars; for equivalised Off-Farm Income, 2021/22 and 2023/24 are shown, while 2022/23 and 2023/24 are shown for the unequivalised income.
2. 95% Confidence Intervals have been presented to show the range where the true value is likely to lie and provides an indication of the degree of uncertainty of the estimate.

Figure 2.2 shows that average Off-Farm Income decreased as farm economic performance increased in all years from 2021/22 to 2023/24. For low performing farms, the unequivalised average was £12,500, while the equivalised average was £8,700. Conversely, high performing farms had an unequivalised average of £8,800 and an equivalised average of £5,800.

As with the average at the all farm level, equivalised Off-Farm Income increased for farms of all performance bands between 2021/22 and 2023/24. The biggest percentage difference was in high performing farms, whose average more than tripled. All performance bands saw minimal changes in their unequivalised average between 2022/23 and 2023/24.

Figure 2.3 Median Off-Farm Income by farm business size based on Standard Labour Requirement (SLR) in England, 2021/22, 2022/23 and 2023/24

Source: Dataset table 2

Figure notes:
1. The legend is presented in the same order as the bars; for equivalised Off-Farm Income, 2021/22 and 2023/24 are shown, while 2022/23 and 2023/24 are shown for the unequivalised income.
2. 95% Confidence Intervals have been presented to show the range where the true value is likely to lie and provides an indication of the degree of uncertainty of the estimate.

Figure 2.3 shows that average Off-Farm Income tended to decrease as farm business size (based on SLR) increased, with the pattern most obvious in 2023/24. The unequivalised average for part-time farm businesses was £17,400 in 2023/24, which reduced to £11,900 when equivalised. For large farm businesses, the unequivalised average was £3,700 and the equivalised average was £2,500.

Compared to 2021/22, the largest percentage difference in equivalised Off-Farm Income was in part-time farm businesses, whose average almost tripled. Medium farm businesses saw the smallest percentage change, with their average increasing by 33% to £5,800.

When comparing unequivalised Off-Farm income between 2022/23 and 2023/24, the average for large farm businesses fell by 40%, while the average for small farm businesses rose by 43%. Part-time and large farm businesses only saw marginal changes in their average unequivalised Off-Farm income between 2022/23 and 2023/24.

Figure 2.4 Median Off-Farm Income by tenure type in England, 2021/22, 2022/23 and 2023/24

Source: Dataset table 2

Figure notes:
1. The legend is presented in the same order as the bars; for equivalised Off-Farm Income, 2021/22 and 2023/24 are shown, while 2022/23 and 2023/24 are shown for the unequivalised income.
2. 95% Confidence Intervals have been presented to show the range where the true value is likely to lie and provides an indication of the degree of uncertainty of the estimate.

Figure 2.4 shows that, unlike with the previous breakdowns, there was no clear pattern in the effect of tenure type on Off-Farm Income in 2023/24. All tenure types had an average unequivalised Off-Farm Income of around £12,500, which matched the all farms average. Similarly, equivalised income averages ranged between £7,500 (mixed tenure farms) and £8,300 (owner occupied farms); the all farms average was also £8,300.

However, in both 2021/22 and 2022/23, tenanted farms had the highest average Off-Farm Income. The smallest percentage change between equivalised incomes in 2021/22 and 2023/24 was also in tenanted farms, a rise of 65%, while the averages for mixed tenure and owner occupied farms more than doubled. Conversely, tenanted farms had the largest percentage change in unequivalised incomes between 2022/23 and 2023/24, a fall of 29%, while the averages for owner occupied and mixed tenure farms changed by less than 2%.

3 What you need to know about this release

3.1 Contact details

Responsible statistician: Cat Hand

Public enquiries: fbs.queries@defra.gov.uk

For media queries between 9am and 6pm on weekdays:

Telephone: 0330 041 6560

Email: newsdesk@defra.gov.uk

3.2 National Statistics Status

Accredited official statistics are called National Statistics in the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007. An explanation can be found on the Office for Statistics Regulation website. Our statistical practice is regulated by the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR). OSR sets the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics that all producers of official statistics should adhere to.

These accredited official statistics were independently reviewed by the Office for Statistics Regulation in January 2014. They comply with the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics and should be labelled ‘accredited official statistics’.

You are welcome to contact us directly with any comments about how we meet these standards (see contact details above). Alternatively, you can contact OSR by emailing regulation@statistics.gov.uk or via the OSR website.

Since the latest review by the Office for Statistics Regulation, we have continued to comply with the Code of Practice for Statistics, and have made the following improvements:

• Reviewed and improved data presentation to better meet accessibility guidelines

• Automated production of the statistics using Reproducible Analytical Pipelines (RAP)

• Reviewed and improved accompanying commentary.

3.3 User engagement

As part of our ongoing commitment to compliance with the Code of Practice for Official Statistics we wish to strengthen our engagement with users of these statistics and better understand the use made of them and the types of decisions that they inform.

We invite users to make contact to advise us of the use they do, or might, make of these statistics, and what their wishes are in terms of engagement. Feedback on this statistical release and enquiries about these statistics are also welcome.

3.4 Survey content, methodology and data uses

The Farm Business Survey is an annual survey providing information on the financial position, physical characteristics, and economic performance of farm businesses in England. The sample of farm businesses covers all regions of England and all types of farming.

Data for the Farm Business Survey are collected through face-to-face interviews with farmers, conducted by highly trained research officers.

The data are widely used by the industry for benchmarking and inform wider research into the economic performance of the agricultural industry, as well as for evaluating and monitoring current policies. The data will also help to monitor farm businesses throughout the Agricultural Transition period.

3.5 Availability of results

All Defra statistical notices can be viewed on the Statistics at Defra page.

More publications and results from the Farm Business Survey are available on the Farm Business Survey Collection page.

4 Technical note

4.1 Survey coverage and weighting

The Farm Business Survey only includes farm businesses with a Standard Output of at least £21 thousand, based on activity recorded in the previous June Survey of Agriculture and Horticulture. In 2023/24, the sample of 1,373 farms represented approximately 51,300 farm businesses in England.

Initial weights are applied to the Farm Business Survey records based on the inverse sampling fraction for each design stratum (farm type and farm size). Dataset table 16 from the Farm Accounts in England publication shows the distribution of the sample compared with the distribution of businesses from the 2023 June Survey of Agriculture. These initial weights are then adjusted, using calibration weighting, so that they can produce unbiased estimates of a number of different target variables. More detailed information about the Farm Business Survey can be found on the technical notes and guidance page. This includes information on the data collected, information on calibration weighting and definitions used within the Farm Business Survey.

The data used for this analysis is from those farms present in the Farm Business Survey that reported their Off-Farm Income. In 2023/24 this subsample consisted of 963 farms (70% of the full sample). This subsample has been reweighted using a method that preserves marginal totals for populations according to farm type and farm size groups. As such, values shown in this publication may not exactly match results calculated using the main FBS weights.

4.2 Accuracy and reliability of the results

As it is impractical to survey the entire population of farms, estimates derived from the Farm Business Survey data are inherently subject to sampling error. This is a core principle in statistical survey methodology, which aims to infer population parameters by obtaining a representative sample through carefully designed sampling techniques. To quantify sampling error and provide a measure of uncertainty, this publication presents 95% confidence intervals for estimated averages. These intervals, shown as error bars in bar plots, indicate the range within which we expect the true population average to lie for 95% of similarly constructed samples. Narrower confidence intervals typically indicate larger sample sizes or less variability within the sample, thereby offering more precise estimates of the population average. Conversely, wider confidence intervals often result from smaller sample sizes or greater sample standard deviations, signalling less precision. These wider intervals should be interpreted with greater caution. Statistically, a confidence interval provides a plausible range for the true population average based on the sample data. Specifically, a 95% confidence interval reflects a process that, under repeated sampling, would contain the true population average in 95% of such intervals, rather than indicating a 95% probability for any single interval to include the population average.

4.3 Methodology for calculating Off-Farm Income

Off-Farm Income is collected at a gross level as banded data:

Table 4.1 Off-farm income data collection

Band	Off-farm income
1	£0
2	£1 to below £1,000
3	£1,000 to below £2,500
4	£2,500 to below £5,000
5	£5,000 to below £7,500
6	£7,500 to below £10,000
7	£10,000 to below £15,000
8	£15,000 to below £20,000
9	£20,000 to below £25,000
10	£25,000 to below £30,000
11	£30,000 to below £40,000
12	£40,000 to below £50,000
13	£50,000 to below £75,000
14	£75,000 to below £100,000
15	£100,000 to below £150,000
16	£150,000 to below £200,000
17	£200,000 or more

To estimate the true value from banded data for each farm, two methods were used. The first method was Mean Constrained Integration over Brackets (MCIB), developed by Paul Jargowsky and Christopher Wheeler (2018), and involved estimating density functions for each income bracket. These functions captured the variation and relative frequency of households within each bracket, using either linear or uniform approximations. By estimating these density functions, the MCIB methodology provided a more accurate representation of the income distribution.

The MCIB could not estimate the open top band without a grand mean. To address this, the Robust Pareto Midpoint Estimator (RPME), developed by Paul von Hippel et al (2014), was used. The RPME fitted a Pareto distribution to the top band, determining a minimum shape parameter cut-off and using a different mean for estimation, geometric for this report.

Both methods were more accurate than simply taking the midpoint of each band and allowed for the calculation of accuracy measures. The estimates for each band were calculated for each survey year and farm type, and then these were assigned to the corresponding farms as the Off-Farm Income value. The median income could then be calculated conventionally.

4.3.1 Equivalisation and adjusting for inflation

The median Off-Farm Income values were equivalised, which refers to adjusting the figures using the number of adults and children in the household to the level of a single adult, allowing a fair comparison of households.

After equivalisation, values were adjusted for inflation using the Consumer Prices Index including owner occupiers’ housing costs (CPIH). Quarterly CPIH indices were used to create yearly indices which matched FBS years and these were rebased to 2023. The equivalised values were multiplied by these indices to adjust them for inflation.

The OECD-modified equivalence scale is the standard method used for equivalisation; it assigns a value of 1 to the household head, 0.5 to each additional person aged 14 and over and 0.3 to each child aged under 14. In 2021/22, the Farm Business Survey did not collect the age of children, therefore, a value of 0.5 was assigned to each additional adult and 0.3 to each child for that year. In 2023/24, the number of children under 14 and 14 or over was collected, so equivalisation for that year follows the OECD scale. For example, the total equivalence value for a household with a married couple, a 16-year-old child and a 10-year-old child is calculated as follows:

2021/22:
1 (first adult) plus 0.5 (second adult) plus 0.3 (16-year-old) plus 0.3 (10-year-old) is 2.1

2023/24:
1 (first adult) plus 0.5 (second adult) plus 0.5 (16-year-old) plus 0.3 (10-year-old) is 2.3

The income is then divided by this value to give the equivalised income for a single adult.

Table 4.2 Indicative equivalised medians of Off-Farm Income (with equivalence values shown in brackets) for differing household compositions in England, 2021/22 and 2023/24

Household size	2021/22	2023/24
One adult	3,500 (1)	8,300 (1)
One adult, one child aged 16	4,600 (1.3)	12,400 (1.5)
One adult, one child aged 10	4,600 (1.3)	10,700 (1.3)
Two adults	5,300 (1.5)	12,400 (1.5)
Two adults, one child aged 16	6,300 (1.8)	16,500 (2)
Two adults, one child aged 10	6,300 (1.8)	14,900 (1.8)
Two adults, two children aged 16 and 10	7,400 (2.1)	19,000 (2.3)

Table 4.2 demonstrates the effect of equivalisation and show the difference between the 2021/22 and 2023/24 equivalisation methods. They allow the user to compare their Off-Farm Income to the average for an equivalent household.

More information on equivalisation can be found on the OECD website, in the ONS Family spending in the UK publication and on the Eurostat website.

4.4 Definitions

Farm type

This refers to the ‘robust type’, which is a standardised farm classification system.

Farm size

Farm business size in the United Kingdom is measured in Standard Labour Requirement (SLR) rather than by Standard Output grouping or land area. The SLR of a farm represents the normal labour requirement for all the farm’s cropping and livestock activities under typical conditions. This is measured in Full Time Equivalents (FTE), which is the number of full-time workers required. The SLR is calculated from standard coefficients applied to each enterprise on the farm. The standard coefficients represent the input of labour required per head of livestock or per hectare of crops for enterprises of average size and performance.

Farm business size	SLR
Part-time	Less than 1 FTE
Small	1 to less than 2 FTE
Medium	2 to less than 3 FTE
Large	3 or more FTE

Median

The median divides the population, when ranked by an output variable, into two equal sized groups. The median of the whole population is the middle value.