FOI REF: FOI-2023-1241
You asked
Please could I request: 1. The number of adults living in the UK right now who have some form of disability 2. The number of UK adults working in STEM fields who have some form of disability 3. The number of UK adults working specifically in physics-based fields, who have some form of disability.
We said
Thank you for your freedom of information request regarding adults with a disability.
The associated download named 'Disability England and Wales 2021', provides Census 2021 estimates that classify usual residents in England and Wales by long-term health problems or disabilities.
Occupation classifies what people aged 16 years and over do as their main job. Their job title or details of activities they do in their job and any supervisory or management responsibilities form this classification. This information is used to code responses to an occupation using the Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) 2020.
It classifies people who were in employment between 15 March and 21 March 2021, by the SOC code that represents their current occupation.
The lowest level of detail available is the four-digit SOC code which includes all codes in three, two and one digit SOC code levels.
SOC2020 has:
9 Major Groups (1 digit)
26 Sub-Major Groups (2 digits)
104 Minor Groups (3 digits)
412 Unit Groups (4 digits)
For more information see here.
On 31 May 2023, we released the following analysis: Occupations of those in employment, by local area, working pattern, employment status and disability status, England and Wales, Census 2021.
This dataset provides occupations coded to 4-digits (SOC 2020). You will need to decide which jobs you consider to be STEM occupations. Whilst most will be within the codes 2111-2212, 3111-3212 and 8113 some may be 'hidden' in a different code. Please note this is for England and Wales only.
Table 1 subgroup 'disabled' begins on row 4953
You may also be interested in the extended SOC project where users reported that the existing four-digit structure is not detailed enough for their needs. The extended SOC has addressed this need by creating an additional level of detail within SOC2020. This level of the classification is termed Sub-Unit Group and is comprised of six digits and has increased the number of occupational groups from 412 to 1,369 at six digits. For more information see here.
The UK censuses are run separately by each National Statistics Office (Northern Ireland Statistics & Research Agency (NISRA), National Records of Scotland (NRS), and the Office for National Statistics (ONS) for both England and Wales.
Northern Ireland's census was taken in 2021 and you can access their census data here: https://www.nisra.gov.uk/statistics/2021-census/results
Scotland's census was moved to 2022 so there may not be data available yet. Please see their website for information: https://www.scotlandscensus.gov.uk/
The publication of UK Census data is dependent on the availability of Scotland's Census 2022 data.
Contact details for NRS and NISRA are as follows:
NATIONAL RECORDS OF SCOTLAND
Tel: 0131 3144299
Email: statisticscustomerservices@nrscotland.gov.uk
Website: www.nrscotland.gov.uk
NORTHERN IRELAND STATISTICS & RESEARCH AGENCY
Tel: 02890 255156
Email: census@nisra.gov.uk
Website: http://www.nisra.gov.uk/census