Employment by qualification level
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- 1. Navigate to Main facts and figures section
- 2. Navigate toEmployment by ethnicity and qualification level section
- 3. Navigate toEmployed men by ethnicity and qualification level section
- 4. Navigate toEmployed women by ethnicity and qualification level section
- 5. Navigate to Methodology section
- 6. Navigate to Data sources section
- 7. Navigate to Download the data section
1. Main facts and figures
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at most qualification levels, White people were more likely to be employed than people from other ethnic groups
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at every level of qualification and in all ethnic groups, men were more likely to be employed than women (with any exception visible in the charts unreliable due to small sample sizes)
Things you need to know
These employment figures are estimates based on the Annual Population Survey (APS).
The APS is a ‘sample survey’. It collects information from a random sample of the population to make generalisations (reach ‘findings’) about the total population.
The commentary for this data includes only reliable, or ‘statistically significant’, findings. Findings are statistically significant when we can be confident that they can be repeated, and are reflective of the total population rather than just the survey sample.
Specifically, the statistical tests used mean we can be confident that if we carried out the same survey on different random samples of the population, 19 times out of 20 we would get similar findings.
As with all surveys, the estimates from the APS are subject to a degree of uncertainty as they are based on a sample of the population. The degree of uncertainty is greater when the number of respondents is small, so it will be highest for ethnic minority groups.
The ethnic groupings used here are broad; there is no breakdown of data for the more specific ethnic groups each contains. Some of the specific ethnic groups have very different experiences to one another. For example, the Black ethnic group could include both recent migrants from Somalia and Black people born in Britain to British parents.
What the data measures
This data measures the percentage of 16 to 64 year olds not in full-time education who are employed. This is broken down by the highest level of qualification and ethnicity.
‘Employed’ means people who are economically active. This includes people who are:
- in paid work (as an employee or self-employed)
- temporarily away from their job
- on a government-supported training and employment programme
- doing unpaid family work
Qualification level refers to the highest qualification gained by an individual. It is broken down into 5 broad categories:
- level 4 or higher: higher national diploma (HND); degree; higher degree-level qualifications, or equivalent
- level 3: 2 or more A levels; advanced general national vocational qualification (GNVQ); national vocational qualification (NVQ) 2, 3 or higher; higher or advanced higher national qualifications (Scotland), or equivalent
- level 2: 5 or more GCSEs at grades A to C; intermediate GNVQ; NVQ 2; intermediate 2 national qualification (Scotland), or equivalent
- below level 2: fewer than 5 GCSEs at grades A to C; foundation GNVQ; NVQ 1; intermediate 1 national qualification (Scotland), or equivalent
- no qualifications: no formal qualifications held
Trade apprenticeships are treated as being 50% NVQ level 2 and 50% NVQ level 3. This is in line with Office for National Statistics guidelines.
In the charts and tables, ‘other qualifications’ include:
- foreign qualifications
- some professional qualifications where the level of qualification is not clear
‘All’ qualifications include:
- the percentage of people in that ethnic group with any level of qualification (including no qualifications) who were employed
The ethnic categories used in this data
For this data, the number of people surveyed (the ‘sample size’) was too small to draw any firm conclusions about specific ethnic categories. Therefore, the data is broken down into the following 5 broad ethnic groups used in the 2011 Census:
- Asian
- Black
- Mixed
- White (including White ethnic minorities)
- Other
2. Employment by ethnicity and qualification level
| Highest qualification | All | Asian | Black | Mixed | White | Other |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| All | 77% | 69% | 73% | 71% | 78% | 69% |
| Level 4 and above | 86% | 82% | 85% | 84% | 87% | 77% |
| Level 3 | 82% | 68% | 75% | 78% | 83% | 71% |
| Level 2 | 74% | 64% | 64% | 61% | 75% | 60% |
| Below level 2 | 69% | 58% | 58% | 54% | 70% | 50% |
| Other qualifications | 75% | 64% | 67% | withheld because a small sample size makes it unreliable | 78% | 69% |
| No qualifications | 44% | 39% | 42% | 39% | 45% | 45% |
Download table data for ‘Employment by ethnicity and qualification level’ (CSV) Source data for ‘Employment by ethnicity and qualification level’ (CSV)
Summary of Employment by qualification level Employment by ethnicity and qualification level Summary
This data shows that:
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at almost every qualification level, White people were more likely to be employed than people from other ethnic groups
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among those with no qualifications, people from the White, Black and Other ethnic groups were equally likely to be employed
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although the chart shows differences in employment between other ethnic groups at various qualification levels, small sample sizes mean we can’t draw firm conclusions about these results
3. Employed men by ethnicity and qualification level
| Highest qualification | White | Mixed | Asian | Black | Other | All |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| All | 83% | 75% | 83% | 77% | 79% | 83% |
| Level 4 and above | 90% | 88% | 91% | 89% | 86% | 90% |
| Level 3 | 86% | 81% | 78% | 85% | 80% | 86% |
| Level 2 | 81% | 69% | 76% | 67% | 70% | 80% |
| Below Level 2 | 78% | withheld because a small sample size makes it unreliable | 78% | 67% | withheld because a small sample size makes it unreliable | 78% |
| Other qualifications | 84% | withheld because a small sample size makes it unreliable | 82% | 78% | 78% | 83% |
| No qualifications | 53% | withheld because a small sample size makes it unreliable | 61% | 40% | 62% | 53% |
Download table data for ‘Employed men by ethnicity and qualification level’ (CSV) Source data for ‘Employed men by ethnicity and qualification level’ (CSV)
Summary of Employment by qualification level Employed men by ethnicity and qualification level Summary
This data shows that:
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among those with level 4 qualifications or above, levels of employment were very similar between men from the Asian (91%), White (90%), Black (89%), Mixed (88%) and Other (86%) ethnic groups
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among those with no qualifications, men from the Asian and Other ethnic groups were most likely to be employed, at 61% and 62% respectively
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although the chart shows differences in employment between other ethnic groups at this and other qualification levels, small sample sizes mean we can’t draw firm conclusions about these results
4. Employed women by ethnicity and qualification level
| Highest qualification | All | Asian | Black | Mixed | White | Other |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| All | 72% | 54% | 69% | 67% | 73% | 59% |
| Level 4 and above | 82% | 72% | 82% | 81% | 84% | 68% |
| Level 3 | 77% | 59% | 68% | 74% | 79% | 62% |
| Level 2 | 69% | 52% | 62% | 53% | 70% | 49% |
| Below Level 2 | 60% | 36% | 51% | withheld because a small sample size makes it unreliable | 62% | 39% |
| Other qualifications | 64% | 42% | 55% | withheld because a small sample size makes it unreliable | 70% | 60% |
| No qualifications | 35% | 20% | 45% | withheld because a small sample size makes it unreliable | 37% | 29% |
Download table data for ‘Employed women by ethnicity and qualification level’ (CSV) Source data for ‘Employed women by ethnicity and qualification level’ (CSV)
Summary of Employment by qualification level Employed women by ethnicity and qualification level Summary
This data shows that:
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at every qualification level, women from the Asian and Other ethnic groups were less likely to be employed than women from other ethnic groups
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at level 4 qualification or above, about the same percentage of Black, Mixed ethnic and White women were employed (at 82%, 81% and 84% respectively)
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although the chart shows differences in employment between ethnic groups at other qualification levels, small sample sizes mean we can’t draw firm conclusions about these results
5. Methodology
The APS is a continuous household survey. Most participants are first interviewed face to face, then later by telephone.
The sample is formed from:
- waves 1 and 5 of the Labour Force Survey, in which selected addresses are contacted every 3 months
- ‘boost’ cases, which are in the sample for 4 waves, spread one year apart
The main source for contacting participants is the Royal Mail postcode address file. However, the NHS communal accommodation list and (in the case of remote parts of Scotland) telephone directories are also used.
All eligible individuals found at a selected address may be interviewed. This analysis only uses data based on responses from the individual concerned or a response on their behalf from a family member.
The complex survey design has been taken into account when calculating confidence intervals.
Confidence intervals Confidence intervals for each ethnic group are available in the ‘download the data’ section.
The APS is based on a sample of 16 to 64 year olds, rather than all 16 to 64 year olds in England, Wales and Scotland. This measure makes reliable estimates of the percentage of people in this age bracket who were employed, but it’s impossible to be 100% certain of the true percentage.
Based on the APS results, it’s estimated that 45% of of White 16 to 64 year olds not in full-time education who had no educational qualifications were employed in 2016.
It is 95% certain, however, that somewhere between 44.3% and 46.0% of all White 16 to 64 year olds not in full-time education with no educational qualifications in England, Wales and Scotland were employed in 2016. In statistical terms, this is a 95% confidence interval. This means that if 100 random samples were taken, then 95 times out of 100 the estimate would fall in this range (that is, between the upper and lower confidence interval). But 5 times out of 100 it would fall outside this range.
The smaller the survey sample, the more uncertain the estimate and the wider the confidence interval. For example, fewer 16 to 64 year olds from the Asian ethnic group responded to the survey than their White counterparts, so we can be less certain about the estimate for the smaller group. This greater uncertainty is expressed by a wider confidence interval, for example of between 34.4% and 42.7% for Asians aged 16 to 64 not in full-time education with no educational qualifications in 2016.
Statistically significant findings have been determined where the 95% confidence intervals of an ethnic group do not overlap with the value for all ethnicities in England, Wales and Scotland.
Weighting
Surveys seek information about a particular group of people – we call this the target population.
Every target population will have a particular age and gender profile – for example, teachers are predominantly female and under 50. Some target populations will also have a regional profile – for example, they might be clustered in a particular part of the country.
Surveys collect information from a random sample of the target population to make generalisations (reach ‘findings’) about everyone within that population.
For those findings to be reliable, the sample of people should ideally contain the same mix of age, gender and regional location as the target population.
Where this isn’t the case (because some people haven’t responded, for example) analysts use statistical tools to ‘weight’ the data. Weighting rebalances the survey responses so they represent the target population more accurately. They can then be used to reach meaningful conclusions.
For the data presented here, the Office for National Statistics population estimates and projections are used as the basis for this weighting process.
The sample of approximately 275,000 is weighted to make it more representative of the spread of ages and the male/female mix in the whole population of 16 to 64 year olds.
Suppression rules and disclosure control
In data covering all ethnic groups combined, estimates based on sample sizes of fewer than 30 people have been suppressed.
‘Suppression’ means these figures have not been included in the data, because the numbers involved are too small to draw any reliable conclusions.
For data broken down by ethnic groups, estimates based on sample sizes under 100 have been suppressed (shown by a question mark instead of data in the tables and graphs on this page).
Breaking the figures down by gender and the relatively smaller overall population of those who are unemployed reduces sample sizes further and makes the figures less reliable.
Figures have been suppressed at some qualification levels for the Mixed and Other groups because of the very small numbers. N/A
Rounding
Estimates in the charts and tables are rounded to whole numbers. Estimates in the download file are rounded to 1 decimal place.
Quality and methodology information
6. Data sources
Source
Type of data
Survey data
Type of statistic
National Statistics
Publisher
Office for National Statistics
Note on corrections or updates
Higher-level figures may differ from those published by the Department for Work and Pensions and the Office for National Statistics that use the Labour Force Survey.
Publication frequency
Yearly
Purpose of data source
The Annual Population Survey (APS) is the largest ongoing household survey in the UK and covers a range of topics, including:
- personal characteristics
- labour market status
- work characteristics
- education
- health
The purpose of the APS is to provide information on important social and socio-economic variables at local levels, such as labour market estimates.
The published statistics also allow the government to monitor estimates on a range of issues between censuses.