FOI REF: FOI/2023/5071
You asked
I would like to know how many employees worked in UK banks from 2019 to 2021.
We said
Thank you for your request.
The Business Register and Employment Survey (BRES) is the only source of data which can go into the requisite detail to provide an estimate of employment in "Banks". However, this level of detail is only available for estimates covering Great Britain.
Industry is determined by our Standard Industrial Classification. The part of the classification which is relevant to your request is the subclass 64.19/1 - Banks.
According to BRES, the number of employees working in this subclass was 337,400 in 2019; 331,700 in 2020 and 312,100 in 2021. The reference date for BRES is in September in each year.
For the UK, the most industrial detail we can go into is group 641 – Monetary Intermediation. This includes Central Banks, Banks and Building Societies. Estimates of employees are available for this from BRES in the table linked above. Should you require a more frequent measure, employee jobs by industry can also be estimated from our shorter-term Employee Jobs series. Again, please note this is for Great Britain rather than the UK.