FOI reference: FOI-2026-3687
You asked
My request concerns the ONS VACS02 dataset, Vacancies by industry
The published dataset provides vacancy statistics for SIC 2007 Section K, "Financial and insurance activities", as a combined industry category. I would like to request the equivalent time-series data for the insurance industry separately.
For the purposes of this request, I am primarily interested in:
SIC 2007 class 65.1: Insurance; and
SIC 2007 class 65.2: Reinsurance.
I would therefore like the figures for insurance and reinsurance combined, excluding:
SIC 64: Financial service activities, except insurance and pension funding;
SIC 65.3: Pension funding; and
SIC 66: Activities auxiliary to financial services and insurance activities.
For the latest 10-year period available, please provide the equivalent data for each of the following three measures contained in VACS02:
vacancy levels;
vacancies per 100 employee jobs-the "ratios" series; and
the job openings rate.
Please provide the complete time series for all available three-month periods during the 10-year period, using the same units, seasonal-adjustment basis and methodology as the corresponding VACS02 series.
Where possible, I would also appreciate the insurance and reinsurance figures being supplied separately, as well as combined.
If the ONS does not hold the data at SIC classes 65.1 and 65.2, please provide the closest available industry breakdown. For example, if the lowest available breakdown is SIC Division 65---"Insurance, reinsurance and pension funding, except compulsory social security"-please provide that series and explain precisely which activities are included.
I am requesting any existing estimates, tables, extracts or time-series data held by the ONS. I am not asking the ONS to undertake new statistical analysis. If the requested series is not held, please confirm this and explain the lowest level of industry disaggregation at which the underlying vacancy estimates are held.
Please also include:
any applicable quality, reliability or suppression markers;
any relevant methodological notes specific to producing estimates at this level of industry detail; and
an explanation where figures are held but cannot be disclosed.
We said
Thank you for your request.
Unfortunately, we do not hold vacancy information at the granularity requested in a recorded form (i.e. for Insurance and Reinsurance specifically within the SIC 2007 Section K "Financial and insurance activities"). To fulfil this request, we would need to create new information, which we are not obliged to do under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA).
For context, we do not hold this information in the microdata, and it would be a complex task to create this information. We also do not process the data at lower industrial level due to the sampling and estimation methodology of the Vacancy Survey. More information on the quality and methodology of our vacancy data can be found in the Vacancy Survey QMI.
The lowest industry breakdown we hold is the published sector level aggregates in VACS02: Vacancies by industry.