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 Taxonomy Chart here
See current Dataset Chart here
2024.1
Beta release: 19 March 2024
Final release: est 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).
Older Release Notes
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:
New rates are derived from Working Futures 2017-2027 : Long- run labour market and skills projections for the UK.
The new rates are less detailed, covering just the national level; whereas the old rates provide NUTS1-level detail.
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.