Official Statistics

Shipping fleet statistics 2023: notes and definitions

Published 6 March 2024

Department for Transport (DfT) statistics on UK and world shipping fleets are published on the maritime and shipping statistics page. The statistics are not classed as Accredited Official Statistics as they are partially derived from a commercial source, the management of which is outside of the DfT’s jurisdiction.

Source

This release presents figures from 2 different data sources, the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) official UK Ship Register data and commercially procured world shipping fleet data to put the UK fleet in the context of the global fleet.

Most of these statistics are derived from commercial data sourced from IHS Global Limited from 1986 to 2021, and from Sea/ by Maritech from 2022 onwards, covering vessels in the world fleet (2 different commercial sources). DfT procure shipping fleet data via open competition, in April 2022, the contract was awarded to Sea/ for the first time.

The shipping fleet statistics presented in the shipping fleet tables for 1986 to 2021 have been derived from information supplied to DfT by IHS Global or its predecessor companies (Lloyds, Lloyds Register Fairplay).

Statistics up to 1988 were derived from Lloyd’s ‘General Ship File’.

Until the end of 1986, United Kingdom registered fleet figures were derived from DfT records of trading vessels of 500 gross tons or over registered at ports in the United Kingdom, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man. A different ship type classification was also in use. For 1986, for purposes of comparison, table FLE0301 includes figures from both sources giving the composition of the fleet based on both the ‘old’ and ‘new’ ship type classifications.

The UK Ship Register (UKSR) is managed by the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA). However, for consistency with data for other international fleets, the UK registered fleet statistics presented in these tables (except FLE0100) are based on IHS Global data for years prior to 2022 and Sea/ data from 2022 onwards. These figures may differ slightly from, and be less up to date than, the definitive UKSR information held by the MCA. This is mainly because commercial information on new UK registrations lag slightly behind on UKSR data.

When a vessel leaves the UK flag it is immediately removed for tonnage purposes or vessel totals as each monthly stats document is a snapshot of the fleet on the last day of the calendar month, whilst commercial sources will not know of a vessel’s departure from the Flag possibly until the vessel reflags or that information becomes widely available and is no longer commercial in confidence. There could be 2 months or more time lag between the information the MCA and Sea/ data.

Data sources - strengths, weaknesses, and comparison

The statistics in the shipping fleet release are based on data from 2 sources. The majority of these statistics, including all those in sections 2 and 3 of the shipping fleet publication and data tables other than the first section of FLE0100, are derived from commercial data sourced from IHS Global Limited from 1986 to 2021, and from Sea/ for 2022 onwards, covering vessels in the world fleet (2 different commercial sources).

They are believed to be of good quality, and the underlying dataset is validated by DfT and used in the production of other maritime statistics. However, as the management of the data set is not within DfT control they are not eligible for Accredited Official Statistics badging. However, these statistics are produced to high professional standards set out in the Code of Practice for Official Statistics. There was a definitional change affecting the comparability of data over time in 2009 and 2022.

Figures for 2009 are presented on both the new and old basis in the data tables to allow an assessment of the size of this effect to be made.

The figures in section 1 of the shipping fleet publication and presented in table FLE0100 are derived from information provided by the Maritime and Coastguard Agency for UK registered large commercial vessels.

These figures are extracted from the Fleet Management System used by the Registry of Shipping and Seamen who are responsible for managing the registration process. The statistics cover only Parts I and IV of the UK Ship Register, relating to commercial vessels. Statistics for Parts II (fish catching) and III (small ships) are not reported in the same way. A consistent time series is available since 2003, when the MCA completed a registration renewal exercise.

DfT has carried out a comparison and matching of data from the 2 sources in relation to the UK registered fleet.

Some of the main points to note

The coverage of the 2 sources differs. For example, the MCA data includes some vessels not captured in the commercial source, many of which are inland waterway vessels (for example barges, passenger vessels operating on rivers and inland tankers).

There are several other reasons why the 2 sources do not match completely, though these account for a small number of vessels. For example, the IHS, and Sea/  information on new UK registrations may lag slightly behind that on the UK Register. Also, information on changes of registration is notified separately to MCA, IHS and Sea/, and therefore may appear in each data set at slightly different times.

When presented on a broadly comparable basis (by excluding fishing vessels from the commercial data), figures from the 2 sources are similar as shown in table FLE0100. In particular, most of the largest vessels are consistently identified in both sources meaning that, when the coverage of the IHS and Sea/ data is made as comparable as possible to the UKSR data, tonnage figures are very similar.

Coverage and key definitions

Time period: both sources relate to the fleet as at 31 December of each year.

Vessel size: both sources relate to vessels of 100 gross tonnes (GT) or over.

Measures of ship size (tonnage) - there are 2 alternative ways that the size of ships is measured within these statistics:

Gross tonnage (GT) represents the size of the vessel and is not a measure of weight - it is calculated using a formula based on the volume of enclosed spaces of the vessel. It is used to assess the cost of vessel registration and is the headline tonnage measure for the UKSR.

Deadweight tonnage (DWT) measures the cargo carrying capacity of a vessel, excluding the weight of the ship itself. In general, DWT has been used as the main measure where statistics are based on world fleet data (as in previous years), as overall trends are broadly similar for both measures. The accompanying data tables contain figures for both DWT and GT.

Units of measurement

Under the International Convention on the Tonnage Measurement of Ships, 1969, gross tonnage (GT) is defined as the following function of the total volume of all enclosed spaces in the ship (V), in cubic metres: GT = K1V where K1 = 0.2 + 0.02log10V.

Although the Convention is fully in force, the old ‘gross registered tons’ measure may still be the measure recorded on Lloyd’s Register Fairplay World Fleet Database in a small proportion of cases. This was directly related to the capacity of the space within the hull, and of the enclosed spaces above the deck, which were available for cargo, stores, passengers, and crew, with certain exceptions. In practice, old and new tonnage measures are similar, except for ships with substantial exempt spaces under the old system, such as Ro-Ro vessels. Deadweight tonnes (DWT) is the weight of cargo, stores, fuel, passengers, and crew carried by the ship when loaded to her maximum summer load line. Up to 1986, statistics were compiled for imperial deadweight but from 1987 metric units are used (1 deadweight ton (imperial) = 1.016 deadweight tonnes).

Measures of shipping interests 

A country’s shipping interests may be measured in different ways. UKSR statistics relate to vessels which are registered in the UK. These vessels may be owned or managed by non-UK companies; the commercial data provides other measures of UK shipping including ownership and management.

Vessels

Some tables present results for vessels of 500 GT and above only. This is generally for consistency with data which has historically been available. Vessels under 500 GT are relatively small and so the higher cut-off will only make a modest difference to tonnage totals, but a larger difference in terms of vessel numbers.

Vessel types

UKSR figures cover merchant (trading) and pleasure vessels (Part I of UK Ship Register), including bareboat charters vessels (parts IV of the UK Ship Register). However, very old museum vessels, such as HMS Belfast, are removed from the statistics as they distort the age profile.

Figures from the IHS and Sea/ data presented in this release relate to trading vessels - those which carry cargo or passengers for commercial purposes. However, the accompanying data tables also cover non-trading vessels (for example, fishing vessels). From 2009 onwards, the vessels have been categorised into a DfT vessel type categorisation using the IHS Statcode5 system. Details of these classifications are set out in Table 1 in Supporting Information files. Prior to 2009, ships were coded using the International Classification of Ship Types (ICST) classification.

This method was generally reliable, but in some cases where multiple ship types were recorded for the same vessel, the attribution to an ICST class depended on the order in which the ship types were coded. The ship type classifications used were mainly based on levels 3 and 4 of the 1994 revision of the as set out in Table 2. The IHS Statcode5 classifications used in these statistics are grouped to match the previous ICST as far as possible, but with some slight changes to minimise the sub-division of Statcode categories.

The classification for vessels is based on the vessel type and sub-type which are used to group them following historic grouping based on International Classification of Ship Types (ICST) and IHS.

Sea/ uses the vessel type and subtype to classify vessels, however it provides less granularity compared to IHS. Table 3 outlines the matching vessel types between the 2 commercial sources.

It is worth mentioning that some vessel types interact and cross over are similar and harder to distinguish between. We are working closely with the data provider to improve data quality. The main vessel type this applies to are:

• offshore (except supply) with tanker vessels, offshore (supply) with other work vessels and passenger vessels
• other work vessels with non-merchant vessels

In 2022 data, there was an under-reporting of certain non-trading vessels like fishing vessels, however, we have been working very closely with Sea/ and coverage has improved in 2023.

Trading vessels

Trading vessels are those which carry cargo or passengers for commercial purposes. This is an important distinction because while trading vessels account for the vast majority of UK registered or owned shipping tonnage, they account for a much smaller proportion of vessel numbers. Other vessel types, including dredgers, fishing vessels, tugs and research vessels are deemed to be ‘non-trading’.

From the adoption of Statcode5 in 2009, ‘trading’ vessels correspond directly to the ‘Cargo carrying’ category A in Level 1 of Statcode. All other categories in Level 1, B through Z, are ‘non-trading’. For more details, see Table 2. Prior to the 2009 revision, there was not always a direct correspondence between DfT ship type and trading status. This is because DfT ship type was based on the ‘Main Ship Type’ recorded by IHS, while trading status was partly based on main ship type, but also considered the ‘sub types’ also recorded by IHS. Either a non-trading main ship type or a non-trading sub type could result in a ship being classified as non-trading.

With Sea/ by maritech data, the process is slightly different. We get the ship type and sub-type from which we derive the final ship type and the trading status. Effort have been made to map the ship type list from IHS and Sea/. For more details, see Table 2.

Registry or ‘flag’

International law requires that every merchant ship be registered in a country, called its flag state. Registry (or ‘flag’) refers to the country in which a ship is registered.

The breakdown of flags and flag groups by country

United Kingdom (UK): Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

Crown Dependencies: Isle of Man, Jersey, and Guernsey.

Overseas Territories: Anguilla, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Falkland Islands, Gibraltar, Montserrat, St Helena, Turks, and Caicos Islands (and, prior to 1997, Hong Kong).

EU15: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.

European Union: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, The Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden.

Canada: Canada (including Great Lakes fleet).

Norway: Norway (including Norwegian International Ship Register (NIS)).

United State of America (USA): USA (including Great Lakes fleet, American Samoa, Virgin Islands of the USA, Northern Mariana Islands, Guam, Puerto Rico and USA reserve fleet (except for mid-year 1998)).

The Red Ensign Group

The Red Ensign Group consists of the United Kingdom, the Crown Dependencies (Isle of Man, Guernsey, and Jersey) and the UK Overseas Territories (Anguilla, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Falkland Islands, Gibraltar, Montserrat, St Helena and the Turks and Caicos Islands) which operate shipping registers from their jurisdiction. Any vessel registered in the UK, a Crown Dependency or UK Overseas Territory, is a “British ship” and is entitled to fly the Red Ensign flag.

UK ownership and management has been updated for 2023. The data for 2022 is, however, not available as the variables were not finalised in the December 2022 extract, which is a snapshot of a live database as of 31 December 2022. 

UK owned (or directly owned) ships

Ships for which the headquarters of the company that owns the ship is registered in the United Kingdom (not including the Crown Dependencies and overseas territories).

Where a vessel is owned by a company, its nationality is deemed to be that of the country in which the company is incorporated (the country in which the company is registered or headquartered or both). The owner or direct owner of a ship is also referred to as the ‘registered owner’ of the ship. This should not be confused with the registration of the ship under a particular flag (see above). The registered owner of a vessel may be a company set up for administrative convenience, or a bank or finance company from which the vessel is leased back by its operator.

UK parent ownership

UK parent owned ships are those for which the nationality of the company having the controlling interest in the direct owner is United Kingdom. For coding purposes, this is taken to be the ‘Country of Control’ of the registered owner of the vessel, as identified by IHS. In cases where the registered owner of a ship is a bank or finance company, the specific measure of parent ownership used here will identify the parent, or controlling interests behind that bank or finance company, rather than the controlling ‘shipping’ interest (see UK beneficial ownership below).

UK beneficial ownership

The ultimate controlling owner who benefits from any profits the ship makes. They may be located in their home country or an international centre such as Geneva, Monaco or London.

The purpose of this definition is to strip out the potentially distorting effect of institutions which are simply financing vessel purchases, but not actively operating them in any operational sense, and which may well be based in a different country from those who are financing them.

The beneficial owner would be the first company to whom the vessel is leased, it could operate the ship and get any excess profit or loss. In certain cases, the beneficial owner could lease the ship, through an operating lease, to an operating company who would be responsible for the operating of the ship.

UK management

UK managed ships are those for which the nationality of the company responsible for the day to day running of the ship is the UK.

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