You asked
I am trying to find out, if possible, how many workers in the UK currently have desk based jobs?
We said
Thank you for your recent query regarding the number of workers in the UK who have a desk based job. Unfortunately we do not have the requested information.
The Labour Force Survey (LFS) holds information on people in employment by occupation, published here:
However, there is no classification that indicates whether occupations are desk based or not.
If you are happy to make assumptions about which occupations are desk based, LFS data could be used to get an approximate estimate on the number of desk based workers in the UK. This work can be obtained from the customer services team of ONS Social Survey. Special extracts and tabulations of data are available to order (subject to legal frameworks, disclosure control, resources and agreements of costs, where appropriate). Such enquiries should be made to socialsurveys@ons.gov.uk
As this information is already available to you via this route, ONS considers that s.21(1) applies to this request and the information does not have to be supplied under the terms of the Freedom of Information Act. s.21(1) is an absolute exemption and no consideration of the public interest test needs to be applied.
Alternatively, you can access anonymised LFS datasets from the UK Data Service, if you are able to carry out your own analysis. Details of how to access the data can be found here -
http://ukdataservice.ac.uk/get-data/how-to-access
Data can be downloaded free of charge for non-commercial purposes but if charges are applicable, you will be notified during the ordering process.
Advice for commercial users - http://ukdataservice.ac.uk/get-data/how-to-access/registration.aspx#/tab-commercial-users
Charges - http://ukdataservice.ac.uk/get-data/how-to-access/charges.aspx
List of LFS datasets at the UK Data Service - http://discover.ukdataservice.ac.uk/?q=labour+force+survey