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UK Data Release Notes
Updated over a week ago

This page contains release notes for each of Lightcast's UK dataruns from the 2018.1 datarun forward. The release notes contain information on major methodology changes included with each datarun.

  • The Upcoming Changes section outlines major changes users can expect to see in the next datarun.

  • The Current Release Notes section lists the changes and updates introduced with the latest datarun available in Analyst/Developer.

  • The Dataset Chart lists the major sources that go into Lightcast data and what "vintage" (year, month, etc.) of each source was used for each of the past four dataruns.

  • The Older Release Notes section contains release notes for prior dataruns.

Latest Release Notes

This section lists the changes and updates introduced in the latest datarun.

See current Dataset Chart here

2024.2

Beta Release: 19 September 2024

Final Release: est 1 October 2024

No major taxonomy changes.

Methodology update: We are now using BRES as our source for agricultural data, instead of replacing it with WJS and DEFRA combined, as their agricultural numbers are no longer suppressed at the NUTS 3 level.

Older Release Notes

2024.1

Beta release: 19 March 2024

Final release: 25 March 2024

Military Soc Bug

Fixed an issue where the 2010 SOC “1171” wasn’t being removed in years before 2021.

2023.2

Released 27 October 2023

Updated to SOC 2020

With this release, we’ve updated our occupation taxonomy to be based on SOC 2020 codes. This brings our UK occupation taxonomy into harmony with the SOC taxonomy used in the US (though they won’t be identical, since the US occupation taxonomy includes some known deviations from “standard” SOC codes).

2022.2

APS Quarterly Data

Previously in the further education enrolments and achievements data, program code -2 meant "Not Applicable" and -1 meant "Unknown." However, the -1 value was completely unused. Program code -1 should now be taken to mean "Not Applicable/Not Known" (the meaning given to it in the raw data), and -2 is no longer an available option.

2022.1

APS Quarterly Data

The UK Annual Population Survey is now updated quarterly, rather than at the
end of the year. The data released each quarter represents the previous
twelve months of data.

2021.2

Improved Occupation Earnings We have updated our annual earnings to be actual annual earnings from ASHE rather than ASHE hourly earnings multiplied by 2080 (52 weeks x 40 hours/week). Annual earnings values will change for virtually all occupations, but earnings differences will be most dramatic in non-full-time occupations such as actors, athletes, and crossing patrol occupations.In addition, historical hourly and annual occupation earnings are now available from 2011 to current year.

Projecting NIR data We are now projecting Northern Ireland economy overview data forward one year whenever it lags behind APS.

2021.1

Occupation Replacement Rates We have updated the occupation replacement rates:

Earnings Unsuppression Improvements

We have improved our ASHE earnings unsuppression methodology. First, for suppressed values, we now use disclosed values from other years as seed values when estimating both mean and percentile earnings. This results in earnings estimates that are more consistent year-to-year. Second, we now adjust either the mean or the percentiles so that they are consistent with each other (i.e. our published mean falls within the range of possible means given the percentiles). Finally, wages were not allowed to drop below the historic lowest minimum wage (i.e. apprentice minimum wage).

DEFRA Bug

We fixed a small bug in the 2020.1 datarun where we used data for “Farmers, partners, directors, and spouses full time” instead of “Total labour” when disaggregating English agriculture industry employment from NUTS1 to LAU1. This resulted in a slightly different distribution of industry employment for NUTS3 and LAU1 areas than if “Total labour” were used.

2020.1

Geography Update

We have updated out geography classification. There are several aspect to this change:

  • We changed the codes used to represent the LAU1 regions from the now-defunct Standard Names and Codes (SNAC) 4-character codes to the current standard used by the ONS: Government Statistical Service (GSS) 9-character codes.

  • We updated the NUTS3 portion of the classification from NUTS 2006 to NUTS 2013 definition. All NUTS1 codes remain the same and a number of NUTS3 codes were changed or added. Note that due to incompatibilities between Scottish NUTS3 and LAU1 regions, we have replaced the Scottish NUTS3 regions with a single NUTS3 region for each underlying LAU1 region.

  • The classification now includes Northern Ireland. Previously, our data only covered Great Britain (England, Wales, and Scotland). The codes for the United Kingdom, Great Britain, England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland have also use GSS codes.

Add Northern Ireland Self-Employment Data

The Northern Ireland Census and Business Register and Employment Survey do not cover industry self-employment data. We estimate Northern Ireland self-employment by multiplying the ratio of self-employed to employed persons in Wales by Northern Ireland employment.

2019.1

Additional Industry Detail

Lightcast industry data now includes detail for the Finance, Insurance, and Public Administration industries. Previously, the three and four-digit industry codes detail were aggregated together as a single three or four-digit code. Now, those industries are broken out in the following standard SIC 2007 codes:

  • 64 - Financial service activities, except insurance and pension funding

  • 641 - Monetary intermediation

  • 6411 - Central banking

  • 6419 - Other monetary intermediation

  • 642 - Activities of holding companies

  • 6420 - Activities of holding companies

  • 643 - Trusts, funds and similar financial entities

  • 6430 - Trusts, funds and similar financial entities

  • 649 - Other financial service activities, except insurance and pension funding

  • 6491 - Financial leasing

  • 6492 - Other credit granting

  • 6499 - Other financial service activities, except insurance and pension funding, n.e.c.

  • 65 - Insurance, reinsurance and pension funding, except compulsory social security

  • 651 - Insurance

  • 6511 - Life insurance

  • 6512 - Non-life insurance 652 - Reinsurance 6520 - Reinsurance 653 - Pension funding

  • 6530 - Pension funding66 - Activities auxiliary to financial services and insurance activities

  • 661 - Activities auxiliary to financial services, except insurance and pension funding

  • 6611 - Administration of financial markets

  • 6612 - Security and commodity contracts brokerage

  • 6619 - Other activities auxiliary to financial services, except insurance and pension funding

  • 662 - Activities auxiliary to insurance and pension funding

  • 6621 - Risk and damage evaluation

  • 6622 - Activities of insurance agents and brokers

  • 6629 - Other activities auxiliary to insurance and pension funding

  • 663 - Fund management activities

  • 6630 - Fund management activities

  • 84 - Public administration and defence; compulsory social security

  • 841 - Administration of the State and the economic and social policy of the community

  • 8411 - General public administration activities

  • 8412 - Regulation of the activities of providing health care, education, cultural services and other social services, excluding social security

  • 8413 - Regulation of and contribution to more efficient operation of businesses

  • 842 - Provision of services to the community as a whole

  • 8421 - Foreign affairs

  • 8422 - Defence activities

  • 8423 - Justice and judicial activities

  • 8424 - Public order and safety activities

  • 8425 - Fire service activities

  • 843 - Compulsory social security activities

  • 8430 - Compulsory social security activities

Corrected Scottish Demographics

National Records of Scotland identified an error in the Scottish mid-year population estimates for 2002 to 2010 affecting the age distribution of older age groups which made the 90+ population too small and the population of those aged 81 to 89 too large. Corrected population estimates were published on 25 September 2018 and Lightcast has updated our population demographics data to include this fix. Further information on the error can be found here.

2018.1

Removed Working Futures

The UK Commission for Employment and Skills, the organization that published Working Futures projections, closed in March 2017. Because Working Futures projections will no longer be updated and continuing to adjust to them limited the length of Lightcast’s projection, we have removed the adjustment to Working Futures. Projections are now 10 years from the latest BRES release.

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