Official Statistics

UK payrolled employments by nationality, region and industry, from July 2014 to December 2022

Published 23 March 2023

1. Main points

1.1 Payrolled employments in the UK by nationality

Payrolled employments:

• of UK nationals fell during the pandemic period, reaching a low of 24.90 million in January 2021 - they have since recovered beyond pre-pandemic levels, rising to 26.36 million by December 2022

• of EU nationals increased pre-pandemic, however annual growth was in decline, falling from 16% in July 2015 to 0% in March 2020 - following the pandemic period and the introduction of the new points-based immigration system, payrolled employments for EU nationals stood at 2.47 million in December 2022

• of non-EU nationals steadily increased pre-pandemic, from 1.69 million in July 2014 to 2.12 million in March 2020 - following the pandemic period and the introduction of the new points-based immigration system, annual growth rates have risen rapidly, from 1% in March 2021 to 22% in December 2022

• of non-EU nationals became greater than those of EU nationals for the first time in February 2022 and by December 2022, there were 497,100 more payrolled employments of non-EU nationals than EU nationals

1.2 Payrolled employments in the UK by nationality and region

Between December 2019 and December 2021:

• payrolled employments of EU nationals fell in most regions, whereas those of non-EU and UK nationals increased

• London had the largest decrease in EU nationals, at 79,300, and the largest increase in non-EU nationals, at 57,900

Between December 2021 and December 2022:

• payrolled employments increased across the majority of regions and nationalities, with relatively small decreases in EU nationals in the East Midlands, East, London, South East and South West

• London had the largest decrease in EU nationals, at 8,800, and the largest increase in non-EU nationals, at 140,800

1.3 Payrolled employments in the UK by nationality and industrial sector

Between December 2019 and December 2021:

• large decreases in payrolled employments of EU nationals were seen in the administrative sector, at 66,100, and the accommodation and food sector, at 90,900

• payrolled employments of non-EU nationals increased in the majority of sectors, with the largest increase seen in health and social work, at 88,100

Between December 2021 and December 2022:

• payrolled employments of non-EU nationals increased in all sectors, with the largest increase taking place in health and social work, at 133,000

• wholesale and retail was the only sector to see a decrease in payrolled employments of UK nationals, at 93,300

1.4 About the data in this release

This experimental statistics publication includes counts of payrolled employments in the UK using HM Revenue and Customs’ (HMRC) Pay as You Earn (PAYE) Real Time Information (RTI) data and HMRC’s Migrant Worker Scan (MWS). Employments paid through other sources of income such as self-employment are not included.

Individuals who were furloughed as part of the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme were still required to have their employments reported through the PAYE system, therefore they will feature in these data and contribute toward the employment statistics for the relevant period.

This is the second release of these statistics. They were first released in March 2022 and covered the period from 1 July 2014 to 30 June 2021. Information from July 2021 onwards was unavailable at the time due to an underlying data issue in the MWS. Following a system fix, the time series has been extended to 31 December 2022, providing 18 months of new data.

Payrolled employment counts are broken down by geographical region (NUTS1), industrial sector (SIC2007) and nationality (UK, EU and non-EU). Payrolled employment counts by further EU nationality breakdowns (EU14, EU8, EU2 and Other EU) and industrial sector are also provided in the accompanying spreadsheet.

Nationality breakdowns are determined using HMRC’s MWS. Nationality is reported by individuals when they register for a National Insurance number through the adult National Insurance number registration process. If an individual has subsequently naturalised or changed nationality, this will not be reflected in these statistics.

In these statistics, we group by three broad nationality groups: UK, EU and non-EU. More information on these groupings is provided below.

UK

The 4 countries of the United Kingdom; England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland

EU

The 27 member states of the EU

Non-EU

Non-EU countries excludes the UK and all EU member states

This release refers to key dates relating to EU exit and the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. These dates are:

• 23 June 2016 - the UK held a referendum and 52% of those who voted chose to leave the EU

• 31 January 2020 - the UK left the EU and entered a transition period

• 23 March 2020 - the first COVID-19 lockdown was announced and the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme was introduced

• 31 December 2020 - the transition period ended and the UK left the EU single market and customs union. Free movement between the EU and the UK ended

• 1 January 2021 - the UK introduced a new, points-based immigration system

Throughout this release, we have used the term ‘pandemic period’ for the period from March 2020 (when the first coronavirus lockdown began) to March 2021 (when the roadmap for lifting the third national lockdown commenced). It was during this period that the UK was subject to the strictest restrictions, and therefore it is the period where we see the greatest impact of the pandemic on payrolled employment counts.

The end of freedom of movement and the introduction of the new, points-based immigration system has led to a more demanding process for European Economic Area (EEA) workers to come to the UK. At the same time, there has also been a relative relaxation in restrictions for non-EEA workers. More information on the labour market and immigration can be found in the Migration Advisory Committee 2022 annual report.

As the data in this release are non-seasonally adjusted, comparing the same months in each year helps to assess changes in payrolled employments.

These statistics are experimental and therefore are subject to revisions. Further information on the data sources and the meaning of the term experimental statistics is provided in the background section.

1.5 Contact details

For queries or feedback, please contact:

• T Curd

For press queries, please contact:

• O Kirby

• I Jones

2. Payrolled employments in the UK by nationality, July 2014 to December 2022

This section of the release provides counts and annual growth rates of payrolled employments in the UK, broken down by nationality, from July 2014 to December 2022.

Where the annual growth rate is positive, the number of payrolled employments are higher than they were in the same month in the previous year. Where the annual growth rate is negative, the number of payrolled employments are lower than they were in the same month in the previous year.

The underlying data for all charts in this section can be found in the accompanying spreadsheet.

2.1 Figure 1a: Counts of payrolled employments held by UK nationals, July 2014 to December 2022

Source: HMRC – PAYE RTI (non-seasonally adjusted) and MWS

Figure 1a shows that between July 2014 and December 2022, payrolled employments held by UK nationals increased by 6% (1.49 million).

Over this time period:

• payrolled employments of UK nationals steadily increased, from 24.87 million in July 2014 to 25.73 million in March 2020

• there was a sustained dip in payrolled employments of UK nationals during the pandemic period, with counts falling to a low of 24.90 million in January 2021

• payrolled employments of UK nationals have since recovered and increased beyond pre-pandemic levels, rising to 26.36 million by December 2022

2.2 Figure 1b: Counts of payrolled employments held by non-UK nationals, July 2014 to December 2022

Figure 1b shows that between July 2014 and December 2022, payrolled employments held by non-UK nationals increased by 54% (1.92 million).

Over this time period:

• payrolled employments of both EU and non-EU nationals increased between July 2014 and early 2020, when the UK entered the transition period and the COVID-19 pandemic began

• between January 2020 and January 2022, payrolled employments of EU nationals declined, falling from 2.60 million to 2.44 million

• conversely, payrolled employments of non-EU nationals increased from 2.10 million in January 2020 to 2.43 million in January 2022

• in February 2022, payrolled employments of non-EU nationals became greater than those of EU nationals for the first time in the available data series

• as of December 2022, non-EU nationals held 2.97 million payrolled employments and EU nationals held 2.47 million

2.3 Figure 1c: Nationality make-up of payrolled employments in the UK, in July 2014 and December 2022

Date	July 2014	December 2022
UK	88%	83%
EU	6%	8%
non-EU	6%	9%

Figure 1c shows that between July 2014 and December 2022, the proportion of payrolled employments held by:

• UK nationals decreased by 5 percentage points

• EU nationals and non-EU nationals increased by 2 and 3 percentage points, respectively

2.4 Figure 2: Annual growth rates in payrolled employment counts by nationality, July 2015 to December 2022

Figure 2 shows the annual growth rates in payrolled employment counts by nationality group.

For payrolled employments held by UK nationals:

• annual growth was low and stable pre-pandemic, fluctuating between 0% and 2%

• annual growth dropped to a low of -3% in January 2021

• annual growth then increased, peaking at 4% in March 2022. However, by December 2022 annual growth had decreased to 1%, comparable with pre-pandemic levels

For payrolled employments held by EU nationals:

• annual growth was in decline but remained positive pre-pandemic

• annual growth dropped to a low of -8% in February 2021

• following the easing of restrictions, annual growth increased and became positive in September 2021

• in June 2022, annual growth fell to -1%, in line with the pre-pandemic downwards trend

For payrolled employments held by non-EU nationals:

• annual growth in payrolled employments was steadily increasing pre-pandemic

• unlike payrolled employments held by UK and EU nationals, annual growth did not become negative during the pandemic period, reaching a low of 0% in February 2021

• by December 2022, annual growth had recovered and risen rapidly, to 22%

3. Payrolled employments by nationality and region, December 2019 to December 2022

This section of the release provides counts of payrolled employments in the UK between December 2019 and December 2022, by nationality and region.

Geographic location for employments is recorded based on where the corresponding individual lives, not where they work. Employments where this information is missing are assigned values based on proportions from historic trends.

Figure 3a and figure 3b focus on the change in payrolled employments by region, split across two time periods:

• December 2019 and December 2021, to capture both the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the UK leaving the EU

• December 2021 and December 2022, to capture the most recent year of data

The underlying data for all charts in this section can be found in the accompanying spreadsheet.

3.1 Figure 3a: Change in payrolled employment counts by nationality and region, December 2019 to December 2021

Figure 3a shows the change in payrolled employments in each region and country of the UK between December 2019 and December 2021

Between December 2019 and December 2021:

• all regions saw an increase in the number of non-EU payrolled employments

• payrolled employments held by EU nationals in London fell by 79,300, the largest decrease seen across all regions. Comparatively, payrolled employments of both non-EU and UK nationals in London increased, by 57,900 and 23,100 respectively

• the North East was the only region to see an increase in payrolled employments of EU nationals, of 900

• the East was the only region to see a decrease in payrolled employments of UK nationals, of 4,500

3.2 Figure 3b: Change in payrolled employment counts by nationality and region, December 2021 to December 2022

Figure 3b shows the change in payrolled employments in each region and country of the UK between December 2021 and December 2022

Between December 2021 and December 2022:

• all regions saw an increase in the number of non-EU and UK payrolled employments

• payrolled employments held by EU nationals in London fell by 8,800, the largest decrease seen across all regions. Comparatively, payrolled employments of both non-EU and UK nationals in London increased, by 140,800 and 40,600 respectively

• the East Midlands, East, London, South East and South West were the only regions to see a decrease in payrolled employments of EU nationals

• only the South West and Northern Ireland saw larger increases in UK nationals than non-EU nationals

3.3 Figure 4: Proportion of payrolled employments held by non-UK nationals in December 2022, by region

Region	EU nationals	Non-EU nationals
North East	2%	5%
North West	5%	7%
Yorkshire and the Humber	5%	6%
East Midlands	8%	7%
West Midlands	7%	9%
East	8%	8%
London	17%	23%
South East	8%	10%
South West	6%	5%
Scotland	5%	5%
Wales	3%	4%
Northern Ireland	7%	3%

Figure 4 shows the proportion of total payrolled employments held by EU and non-EU nationals in each region and country of the UK, in December 2022

In December 2022:

• in London, 39% of payrolled employments were held by non-UK nationals; 23% were held by non-EU nationals and 17% by EU nationals

• the North East had the lowest proportion of payrolled employments held by EU nationals, at 2%

• Northern Ireland had the lowest proportion of payrolled employments held by non-EU nationals, at 3%

3.4 Figure 5a: Counts of payrolled employments held by non-UK nationals in London, December 2019 to December 2022

London had the highest proportion of payrolled employments held by non-UK nationals in December 2022.

Figure 5a shows that payrolled employments of EU and non-EU nationals followed different trends over this time period:

• in December 2019, payrolled employments of EU and non-EU nationals were at similar levels, with non-EU nationals holding just 2,900 more payrolled employments than EU nationals

• payrolled employments of EU nationals then decreased to a low of 745,900 in February 2021 and have remained relatively stable since

• payrolled employments of non-EU nationals saw a slight dip during the early months of the pandemic, before steadily growing throughout 2021 and 2022

• by December 2022, non-EU nationals held 289,700 more payrolled employments than EU nationals

3.5 Figure 5b: Counts of payrolled employments held by non-UK nationals in the North East, December 2019 to December 2022

Between December 2019 and December 2022, the North East had the highest percentage growth in payrolled employments of both EU and non-EU nationals. The North East was also the only region to see an increase in payrolled employments of EU nationals.

Figure 5b shows that payrolled employments of EU and non-EU nationals followed different trends over this time period:

• payrolled employments of EU nationals were stable between December 2019 and December 2022, increasing by 6% from 27,600 to 29,300

• payrolled employments of non-EU nationals increased by 90% during the same time period, from 32,000 to 60,900

4. Payrolled employments by nationality and industrial sector, December 2019 to December 2022

This section of the release provides counts of payrolled employments in the UK between December 2019 and December 2022, by nationality and industrial sector (SIC2007).

Figure 6a and figure 6b focus on the 10 industrial sectors with the largest change in payrolled employment counts between December 2019 and December 2022, split across two time periods:

• December 2019 and December 2021, to capture both the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the UK leaving the EU

• December 2021 and December 2022, to capture the most recent year of data

Figure 8 and figure 9 will focus on 5 key industrial sectors: accommodation and food, administration, health and social work, wholesale and retail and agriculture. These sectors have been chosen as they are either the largest employment sectors, or show the most interesting trends in EU and non-EU payrolled employments.

Payrolled employments in agriculture are displayed on separate charts, as counts in this sector are much lower than in the other 4 sectors.

The underlying data for all of the charts in this section can be found in the accompanying spreadsheet.

4.1 Figure 6a: Change in payrolled employment counts by nationality and industrial sector, December 2019 to December 2021

Figure 6a shows the change in payrolled employments between December 2019 and December 2021, by nationality and industrial sector.

Between December 2019 and December 2021:

• payrolled employments of non-EU nationals increased in all sectors other than information and communication, where they decreased by 1,400

• health and social work saw the largest increase in both UK and non-EU nationals, of 126,800 and 88,100 respectively

• manufacturing saw the largest decrease in payrolled employments of UK nationals, of 58,100

• construction saw the largest increase in payrolled employments of EU nationals, of 9,600

• accommodation and food saw the largest decrease in payrolled employments of EU nationals, of 90,900

4.2 Figure 6b: Change in payrolled employment counts by nationality and industrial sector, December 2021 to December 2022

Figure 6b shows the change in payrolled employments between December 2021 and December 2022, by nationality and industrial sector.

Between December 2021 and December 2022:

• payrolled employments of non-EU nationals increased in each sector, with the largest increase taking place in health and social work, of 133,000

• education saw the largest increase in payrolled employments of both UK and EU nationals, of 77,300 and 6,200 respectively

• wholesale and retail was the only sector to see a decrease in payrolled employments of UK nationals, of 93,300

• accommodation and food saw the largest decrease in payrolled employments of EU nationals, of 12,700

4.3 Figure 7: The 10 industrial sectors with the greatest proportion of payrolled employments held by non-UK nationals in December 2022

Sector	EU nationals	Non-EU nationals
Administrative and support services	14%	16%
Accommodation and food service activities	12%	14%
Health and social work	5%	14%
Households, Extraterritorial Organisations and Unknown Entities	9%	13%
Information and communication	8%	13%
Professional, scientific and technical	8%	10%
Other service activities	6%	10%
Finance and insurance	6%	9%
Transportation and storage	13%	8%
Manufacturing	12%	5%

Figure 7 shows the proportion of employments held by non-UK nationals in December 2022.

In December 2022:

• administration had the highest proportion of payrolled employments of both EU (14%) and non-EU (16%) nationals

• of the top 10 industrial sectors displayed in figure 7, only manufacturing and transportation had a greater proportion of payrolled employments held by EU nationals than non-EU nationals

4.4 Figure 8a: Counts of payrolled employments by nationality and industrial sector, December 2019 to December 2022

Figure 8a shows that by December 2022, counts of payrolled employments held by non-EU nationals were greater than those of EU nationals in all 4 sectors

In accommodation and food, payrolled employments of:

• EU nationals decreased by 26%, from 393,000 to 289,400

• non-EU nationals increased by 42%, from 228,800 to 325,700

In administration, payrolled employments of:

• EU nationals decreased by 16%, from 464,200 to 388,300

• non-EU nationals increased by 65%, from 275,000 to 453,100

In health and social work, payrolled employments of:

• EU nationals increased by 2%, from 223,700 to 228,700

• non-EU nationals increased by 52%, from 426,500 to 647,600

In wholesale and retail, payrolled employments of:

• EU nationals decreased by 7%, from 341,600 to 318,400

• non-EU nationals increased by 30%, from 257,200 to 333,900

4.5 Figure 8b: Annual growth rates in payrolled employment counts by nationality and industrial sector, December 2019 to December 2022

Figure 8b shows that annual growth rates dipped in all 4 of the highlighted industrial sectors during the pandemic period, across all nationalities. Annual growth in payrolled employments of non-EU nationals was higher than that of UK and EU nationals

Between December 2019 and December 2022:

In accommodation and food, annual growth in payrolled employments for:

• UK nationals has returned to pre-pandemic levels, at 2%

• EU nationals decreased by 5 percentage points, from 1% to -4%

• non-EU nationals increased by 22 percentage points, from 7% to 29%

In administration, annual growth in payrolled employments for:

• UK nationals increased by 1 percentage point, from 0% to 1%

• EU nationals increased by 1 percentage point, from -3% to -2%

• non-EU nationals increased by 25 percentage points, from 6% to 31%

In health and social work, annual growth in payrolled employments for:

• UK nationals decreased by 2 percentage points, from 2% to 0%

• EU nationals decreased by 3 percentage points, from 4% to 1%

• non-EU nationals increased by 17 percentage points, from 9% to 26%

In wholesale and retail, annual growth in payrolled employments for:

• UK nationals has returned to pre-pandemic levels, at -2%

• EU nationals decreased by 5 percentage points, from 2% to -3%

• non-EU nationals increased by 9 percentage points, from 5% to 14%

4.6 Figure 9a: Counts of payrolled employments held by non-UK nationals in agriculture, forestry and fishing, July 2019 to July 2022

Figure 9a shows counts of payrolled employments of EU and non-EU nationals in the agriculture, forestry and fishing sector. Employments in this sector fluctuate according to the season or time of the year, with a greater number of employments usually seen in the summer months than in the winter months.

For this section, July 2019 is compared to July 2022, as this tends to be the peak month for employments in the sector.

Between July 2019 and July 2022:

• payrolled employments of EU nationals decreased, from 49,300 to 32,600

• payrolled employments of non-EU nationals increased, from 3,500 to 13,400

5. Background

This section describes the methodology and quality assurance steps used in the production of this experimental statistics publication.

5.1 Migrant Worker Scan (MWS) data fix

The previous release of these statistics (published 1 March 2022) covered data up to and including June 2021. Data from July 2021 onwards was unavailable at the time due to an underlying data issue in the MWS. Following a system fix, this data is now available.

Due to the nature of the fix, nationality is not obtainable for a very small number of individuals who registered for a National Insurance number between 1 July 2021 and 16 August 2022. These individuals have been counted as UK nationals in the statistics.

5.2 Revisions

From July 2021, the MWS data extract specification has been improved and now includes everyone over State Pension age from overseas who registers for a National Insurance number. Although these numbers are very small, caution should be taken when observing historic trends, as prior to July 2021 the MWS did not capture everyone over State Pension age.

There has also been a slight methodological improvement that has affected the reporting of nationality in the back series. Previously, individuals were categorised as non-EU nationals where their nationality was listed as ‘not known’ or ‘not yet recorded’. This has been corrected to categorise these individuals as UK nationals, resulting in a small increase in the number of UK nationals and a small decrease in non-EU nationals.

5.3 Limitations of the data

These statistics cover the period 1 July 2014 to 31 December 2022 and all employments in the UK administered by employers through the RTI PAYE service. Employments paid through other sources of income such as self-employment are not included.

These data include imputation for payments not yet received by HMRC which would relate to the respective work periods. The fraction of imputed figures is very small, but this does mean that more recent months are prone to revisions in future publications as payments related to these months continue to be received.

The nationality provided in these statistics is the nationality reported by individuals at the point of National Insurance number registration through the adult National Insurance number registration process. This nationality information is not updated, therefore it is possible that individuals may hold dual nationality or have subsequently changed nationality, for example by taking British citizenship. Current citizenship is not shown within these statistics.

The figures reflect adult overseas nationals allocated a National Insurance number through the adult registration process. In addition, there will be a small number of overseas nationals (aged 16 to 19 years) allocated a National Insurance number through the Juvenile Registration process. This occurs when the individual has previously been allocated a child reference number. These juvenile cases are not captured by these statistics.

Some individuals with the right to work in the UK will pay tax using a Temporary Reference Number (TRN) rather than a National Insurance number. These are not identified in the MWS and so have been classified as UK nationals. It is possible that multiple TRNs correspond to the same employment, which could inflate counts for UK nationals.

5.4 Comparability and related publications

Care needs to be taken when comparing these statistics to other sources.

Payrolled employments cannot be directly compared with payrolled employees. Payrolled employees can have multiple payrolled employments, therefore payrolled employment counts should follow the same trend as payrolled employee counts, but counts will be higher.

The payrolled employment counts provided in these statistics do not capture all jobs in the UK. These statistics only include employments from the PAYE system, they do not include employments from non-payrolled sources such as self-employment.

Any comparisons to estimates from the Labour Force Survey (LFS) should be treated with caution. Differences between the two sources are possible for reasons including, but not limited to, sampling variability in the LFS, as well as definitional differences in nationality and payrolled employments as outlined above. For more information see Comparison of labour market data sources.

HMRC and ONS: Earnings and employee statistics from PAYE RTI

The joint HMRC and ONS release includes counts of payrolled employees at a UK level, on both a Seasonally Adjusted (SA) and Non-Seasonally Adjusted (NSA) basis. This release also includes breakdowns by industrial sector and region. As a payrolled employee might have multiple concurrent payrolled employments, total employee counts are lower than the corresponding employment counts.

The chart below shows the difference between the joint HMRC and ONS release and this release. On a non-seasonally adjusted basis, payrolled employments are at a higher level but follow the same trend as the number of payrolled employees.

HMRC and ONS: Employees from PAYE RTI: Ad hoc estimates of payrolled employees by NUTS1 region and nationality

This joint ONS and HMRC release provides estimates of payrolled employees using PAYE RTI data split by nationality and region, on both a seasonally adjusted and non-seasonally adjusted basis. Nationality has been derived using the MWS and represents the nationality of an individual when they applied for a National Insurance number. There may be slight differences in trends caused by specific statistical techniques used in the production of these statistics.

HMRC: Income Tax, NICs, tax credits and Child Benefit statistics for non-UK nationals

This Official Statistics release provides estimates of Income Tax, National Insurance contributions (NICs), tax credits, and Child Benefit paid by and to non-UK nationals. This analysis is sourced from data on the Survey of Personal Incomes, which is an annual sample of individuals from HMRC administrative data sources: namely PAYE, Self-Assessment and income tax claims.

Statistics published by the ONS

The ONS publish a monthly labour market overview for the UK. This includes estimates of employment, unemployment, economic inactivity and other employment-related statistics. It brings together estimates from multiple sources of data including HMRC PAYE RTI data, the ONS Labour Force Survey and the Monthly Wages and Salaries Survey.

DWP: National Insurance number allocations to adult overseas nationals entering the UK

This Official Statistics release by the DWP provides quarterly statistics on National Insurance number allocations to adult overseas nationals entering the UK. These statistics provide a count of foreign nationals registered for a National Insurance number, and their nationality at the time of registering. They do not show the number of foreign nationals who have started work or are currently in work.

ONS: International migration

The ONS publish estimates of the number of people moving in and out of the UK, long term migration, short term migration, and non-UK resident’s data providing a picture of those entering and leaving the UK, covering all lengths of stay.

5.5 Definitions

Payrolled employment

Payrolled employment counts are a measure of payrolled employee jobs. A single employee may have multiple concurrent employments across different 2007 SIC code groupings. Values for employee jobs are calculated based on the proportion of each month in which the employment was being worked. For example, if an employment started halfway through the month, then it would be counted as half an employment when aggregated up.

This approach aligns with the methodology used in the monthly earnings and employment estimates from PAYE RTI data. Occupational pensions and income from non-payrolled sources such as self-employment are not included.

Pay As You Earn

Pay As You Earn (PAYE) is the system that employers and pension providers use to take Income Tax and National Insurance contributions before they pay wages or pensions to employees and pensioners. It was introduced in 1944 and is now the way that most employees pay Income Tax in the UK. This publication relates to employments only, not employees or pensioners.

Nationality

For most residents in the UK (including foreign nationals), National Insurance numbers are automatically issued when an individual turns 15 years and 9 months old. This standard registration process does not collate information on nationality.

Individuals who are not allocated a National Insurance number through the standard registration process (for example, those who come from abroad after the age of 16) are required to apply for a National Insurance number through the Department for Work and Pensions’ (DWP) adult National Insurance number registration process. This process records nationality at the point of registration. Subsequent naturalisation (to UK citizenship), other changes in nationality and multiple nationalities are not recorded.

Industry (Standard Industry Classification - SIC)

The industrial sectors in this bulletin are based on the UK Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) codes, as defined by the ONS. These codes have been determined from both the Inter-Departmental Business Register (IDBR) and data from Companies House for each PAYE enterprise.

Large enterprises that cover multiple SIC codes are classified into a single SIC code based on the relative number of employees in each SIC code. Changes to the proportion of employees across SIC codes in large enterprises can result in the enterprise being reclassified to a different SIC code. As we link to the most recent quarterly version of the IDBR at the enterprise level, where an employer has been reclassified into a different SIC code, the most recent code is applied across the whole of the time series that is updated monthly.

This means that sector level time series represent the current employers classified in each sector and are less likely to be distorted by employers being reclassified at the enterprise level due to small changes at the lower unit level. However, it also means that these time series may be revised between publications and, in the historical sections of the time series, employers are classified in sectors that they weren’t classified in at that point in time.

For some payrolled employments, the high-level 2007 SIC code groupings are unknown. These employments are grouped with the Household and Extraterritorial Organisations Industries.

Region (Nomenclature of Units for Territorial Statistics - NUTS)

Estimates in this publication are available for England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and the nine English regions, in accordance with the NUTS classification which came into force on 1 January 2015. The Nomenclature of Units for Territorial Statistics (NUTS) provides a single uniform breakdown to produce regional statistics.

Geographic location for employments is recorded based on where the corresponding individual lives, not where they work. Employments where the information is missing are assigned values based on proportions from historic trends.

5.6 Data Sources

Real Time Information (RTI) for Pay As You Earn (PAYE)

The data for this release comes from the HMRC PAYE RTI system. It covers the whole population rather than a sample of people or companies and allows for more detailed estimates of the population.

As individuals who were furloughed as part of the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme should still have their employments reported through this system, they should feature in these data and contribute toward the employment statistics for the relevant period.

Migrant Worker Scan (MWS)

The MWS is a quarterly extract or subset of data, compiled from the National Insurance and Pay as You Earn Service (NPS) database system. The NPS system is owned by HMRC, with input from DWP. The January 2023 extract of the MWS was used for this analysis.

DWP register post-16 National Insurance numbers through their adult registration process, which usually includes an interview to verify identity and right to residency in the UK. In some circumstances, DWP will allocate National Insurance numbers following a successful application through the Home Office (HO) for a Biometric Residence Permit (BRP) or another ‘fast path’ application process.

In all the above scenarios, DWP will allocate the National Insurance number and enter the information onto the NPS system, including details of their nationality at the point of application.

When Child Benefit is claimed on behalf of foreign national resident children, a National Insurance number is automatically allocated at the age of 15. These individuals will not appear on the MWS.

5.7 Methodology

An accompanying article contains more information on the calendarisation and imputation methodologies used in these statistics, alongside comparisons with other earnings and employment statistics.

Statistics in this release are based on people who are employed in at least one job paid through PAYE, and monthly estimates reflect the average number of payrolled employments held by such individuals for each day of the calendar month. This aligns with the methodology used in the monthly RTI statistics.

A seasonal adjustment factor is not applied to these statistics, however the data is subject to seasonality. Drivers of seasonality in the statistics are likely to be linked to seasonality in employment and within certain industries, so care should be taken when comparing estimates on a monthly or quarterly basis.

5.8 Experimental Statistics status

This release is classed as experimental, as the methodologies used to produce the statistics are still in their development phase. This does not mean that the statistics are of low quality, but it does signify that the statistics are new and still being developed. As the methodologies are refined and improved, there may be revisions to these statistics.

More information about Experimental Statistics, including when they should be used and the differences between them and National Statistics, is available.

5.9 Pre-release data

HMRC grants pre-release access to Official Statistics publications, and in accordance with the HMRC policy, 24 hour pre-release access has been granted to a number of people to enable the preparation of a ministerial briefing. Further details, including a list of those granted access, can be found on HMRC pages on GOV.UK.