Occupation, industry and travel to work question development for Census 2021

In December 2018, the government presented to Parliament a White Paper Help Shape our Future: The 2021 Census of Population and Housing in England and Wales (PDF, 967KB). This outlined the Office for National Statistics's (ONS's) proposal to collect information on occupation, industry and travel to work. The data collected are used for many purposes, including the derivation of the National Statistics Socio-economic Classification (NS-SEC), supporting local industries and workers, and planning and providing transport services.

This report details the development of the questions on occupation, industry and travel to work that ask details on employment status, organisation name, occupation, job description, industry, supervisory status, method of travel to work, workplace and address of workplace.

Census 2021 will be an online-first census, with a target of 75% online returns. We have reviewed and tested each question online and have recommended additional design and functionality amends specific to the electronic questionnaire. We have also recommended additional changes to the question designs following our stakeholder engagement, evaluation and testing programmes. These changes will be detailed in this report.

The main recommended changes to question designs are:

• we have ensured that the questions conform to Government Digital Service Standards; for example, we have changed the format of the question on place of work and address
• we have updated the lists of example occupations and main activities so that they are more representative of the current workplace

Changes to question designs, including online functionality and accessibility, are detailed in the section Research that led to the recommended Census 2021 question designs.

Since the publication of the White Paper, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has conducted and concluded the final phase of testing on occupation, industry and travel to work. Occupation, industry, travel to work, economic activity and hours worked are all part of the labour market topic. We have also published a report covering the questions on economic activity and hours worked Economic activity and hours worked question development for Census 2021.

This report details the development of questions on:

• employment status

• organisation name

• job title

• job description

• main activity

• supervisory status

• method of travel to work

• place of work

• workplace address

The report on economic activity and hours worked details the development of questions on:

• employment activity last week
• reasons for not working
• looking for work
• availability to work
• waiting to start a job already accepted
• ever worked
• hours worked

This report provides the findings of testing that led to the final recommended questions on the topics of occupation, industry and travel to work for Census 2021 in England and Wales. The questions and response options for Census 2021 have now been finalised through the census secondary legislation: the Census (England and Wales) Order 2020, and Census Regulations for England and for Wales.

The evidence base for the questions for Census 2021 is discussed in the section Research that led to the recommended Census 2021 question design.

In June 2015, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) held a formal, 12-week consultation process asking census users for their views on the topics that were required in the questionnaire in England and Wales. The aim of the consultation was to promote discussion and encourage the development of strong cases for topics to be included in Census 2021.

In May 2016, the ONS published its response to the 2021 Census topic consultation. This set out our updated view on the topics to be included in Census 2021, including:

• a summary of proposals for new topics
• next steps
• an overview of our plans

This response included a commitment to continue to collect information on the labour market.

The 2021 Census topic consultation revealed a clear requirement for information on labour market to enable local authorities to create economic plans and strategies, to help identify and address inequalities in the community. Data collected from the questions on occupation, industry and travel to work are also used in the derivation of the National Statistics Socio-economic Classification (NS-SEC) and to help understand and plan travel services.

A detailed summary of the consultation responses relating to all the labour market questions covering economic activity, occupation, industry and travel to work can be found in the labour market topic report (PDF, 809KB) and the travel topic report (PDF, 1.6MB). In these reports, the ONS made clear commitments to the public. These were:

• to explore how the online question(s) set can improve the collection of the data while still meeting user needs, especially for occupation and industry

• to review question guidance, consider improvements possible via online collection, improve data quality and reduce the burden placed on respondents

• to review the question on supervisory status to see if these data can be derived from other sources

 We have provided an update on how we met these commitments in Annex 1.

Following this, we began a comprehensive programme of research and development. We provide a full list of the tests used in the development of the questions on occupation, industry and travel to work in Annex 2. Further details are provided in the summary of testing for Census 2021.

The tests used a range of qualitative and quantitative research methods. A short description of the different research methods and sampling techniques is given in the question and questionnaire development overview for Census 2021. Testing included respondents from a wide range of backgrounds.

In December 2018, the government presented to Parliament a White Paper Help Shape our Future: The 2021 Census of Population and Housing in England and Wales (PDF, 967KB). This outlined our proposal to continue to collect information on the labour market.

The question recommendations for Census 2021 are now finalised. We have evaluated the questions for their potential impact on data quality, public acceptability, respondent burden, financial concerns and questionnaire mode. We present details of this evaluation in Annex 3.

In the White Paper Help Shape our Future: The 2021 Census of Population and Housing in England and Wales (PDF, 967KB), we stated that we were finalising the question designs for Census 2021.

The starting point for testing, developing and finalising the labour market questions was the 2011 Census question designs. You can see these questions on the 2011 Census Household Questionnaire (PDF, 1.8MB).

As in the census in 2011, the questions refer to a respondent's main job. The main job is defined as the job that the respondent currently holds or most recently held if the respondent is not currently in work. If the respondent has or had more than one job, then it is the job in which the respondent usually works or worked the most hours. This definition of main job is stated before the questions on occupation, industry and travel to work: online this definition appears on an interstitial page; on paper the definition is within an instructional question.

For simplicity, we use the questions referring to current employment in this report. On paper, both the present and past tense are used, for example, the question on employment status is "In your main job, what is (was) your employment status?". Online, the tense will automatically adjust, depending on whether the respondent is currently working or not.

Employment status in main job

In the 2011 Census, the question wording was not a complete question; the question was "In your main job, are (were) you:" and then listed the response options with a question mark after them, for example, "an employee?". This style of question does not conform to Government Digital Service Standards so we investigated how to change this to ensure a whole question was asked in the question stem.

We tested (2018:14) a version of this question with members of the public.

The question was:

In your main job, what is your employment status?

[] Employee

[] Self-employed or freelance without employees

[] Self-employed with employees

The wording of this question was similar to the question used in the census in 2011, except that a whole question was included in the question stem. The participants were cognitively interviewed after completing either an online or paper version of the questionnaire containing questions on qualifications, armed forces and the labour market.

Participants understood the concept of "employment status" when it was applied to a main job. They found the answer categories clear and easy to answer. There were no changes recommended to the wording of the question.

This question was taken forward to quantitative testing (2018:37), with members of the public who completed an online survey, and no issues were found.

Feedback from the 2019 Rehearsal (2019:15) showed that respondents were unclear about the definition of "freelance", so we added a definition into the response option text online. Analysis from the 2019 Rehearsal also showed that many respondents were not reading the interstitial page, so we added the definition of main job, "Your main job is the job in which you usually work the most hours", underneath the question. This was not possible to do on paper because of space constraints.

Name of organisation or business

The question used in 2011 gave unclear advice for people who were self-employed. They were given instructions to write in their business name (if self-employed) but there was also a tick-box that they could tick, which stated "No organisation, for example, self-employed, freelance, or work (worked) for a private individual".

In order to clarify the answer process for those who are self-employed, we conducted cognitive interviews (2018:14) using three different versions of the question.

Version 1

A two-stage question, asking "Who do (did) you work for?" with response options: "An organisation or business", "Self-employed in own organisation or business", "Self-employed or freelance without an organisation or business" and "Private individual". If a respondent selected either of the last two options then they were routed around the second stage, which asked the name of the organisation or business.

Version 2

A one-stage question, designed to reduce respondent burden, asking "What is (was) the name of the organisation or business you work (worked) for?" and instruction text "if you are (were) self-employed in your own business, write in your business name".

Version 3

The same question as version 2 but after the question there was an "OR" next to a tick-box, stating "No organisation or work for a private individual". Online, the tick-box did not appear but there was a question "Do you work for an organisation or business?" and if participants answered "Yes" they were routed to the question asking the name of the organisation or business.

The results showed that those self-employed were able to answer all the versions easily. However, those who were freelance or sole traders had problems with versions 1 and 2 and the online variant of version 3, as they did not consider themselves to have a named organisation or business.

The recommendation from this testing was to further test the paper variant of version 3, as this seemed to address the problems reported by participants who were freelancers or sole traders.

Version 3 was taken forward to quantitative testing (2018:37), with members of the public, which found no major issues with the question. However, the number of participants dropping out of the questionnaire at this question was relatively high (54 of 2,715 participants). Feedback from cognitive testing had shown that people considered the answer to be personally identifying and this may have caused the high dropout rate. No major issues were raised during user experience testing (2019:1, 2020:2) of these questions.

Job title

The question in the 2011 Census was “What is your full and specific job title?” with a list of example job titles and an instruction not to state grade or pay band.

This question had a high demand for online help in 2011, suggesting that it was not as straightforward to answer as testing for the 2011 Census had shown. Therefore, we decided to investigate if we could update the question to make it easier for respondents to answer.

We started our testing by conducting informal interviews (2018:1) with 34 people who looked at one of two versions of the paper question. Each version used the same question stem of “What is (was) your full and specific job title?” and the instruction “Do not state your grade or pay band”. The questions only differed in the examples of job titles given in the instructions.

Version 1

The 2011 Census question, which used the examples of primary school teacher, car mechanic, district nurse and structural engineer.

Version 2

A new version, which used the examples of retail assistant, school cleaner, district nurse and primary school teacher.

The examples in version 2 were chosen to reflect the more common occupations recorded where additional information is needed to produce accurate outputs. For example, one of the examples was “primary school teacher” to indicate that respondents should specify what type of teacher they are.

Feedback showed that some respondents found this question difficult to answer on behalf of another person, particularly since the question asked for “specific” job titles. There was mixed feedback on whether the examples used in each version were useful or not. Generally, participants favoured version 2.

As testing had shown mixed feedback on the usefulness of examples, we tested a version of the question without the examples, by conducting informal interviews with members of the public who attended a jobs fair (2018:7).

Feedback showed that participants found the question difficult to answer as they were unsure on the level of detail they should use in their answer. The recommendation from this testing was that the question should include examples of job titles.

Cognitive testing

We conducted cognitive testing (2018:14) with members of the public to test a shortened wording of the question stem. The testing was conducted over three rounds, with 22 participants completing the question online and 12 completing the paper questionnaire. For both modes and all rounds, the question asked was “What is (was) your full job title?”. This version of the question stem removed the phrase “specific” from the question as this phrase had caused some difficulty in the first round of testing (2018:1).

Feedback showed that participants understood the question stem both on paper and online.

This question was quantitatively tested (2018:37) by members of the public who completed qualification and labour market questions via an online survey. There were no issues found for the question on job title.

We also investigated the use of search-as-you-type functionality for this question. We concluded that we would not use this functionality in Census 2021. Further details of the testing of this functionality are in Annex 1.

Job description

In informal testing (2018:1), participants found this question difficult to answer on behalf of another person. Some participants suggested including examples of how to answer the question.

In cognitive testing (2018:14) with members of the public, two versions of the question stem were tested.

Version 1

What do (did) you do in your job?

Version 2

Briefly describe what you do (did) in your main job.

Testing showed that participants were unsure how much detail they should provide when responding to question version 1 online. Giving the right level of detail is critical in enabling the output to be coded correctly. On paper, the space provided for the answer gives guidance on how much detail to use. However, online there is only a text box, which does not provide any visual feedback on how much to write. For this reason, version 2 was preferred by those answering online as it gives more direction (“Briefly describe…”) than version 1.

The recommendation from this testing was that version 2 of the question stem should be used in the questionnaire. This version was taken forward into quantitative testing (2018:37) using an online survey, where no issues were found.

Main activity of employer or business

In 2011, the question was:

In your workplace, what is the main activity of your employer or business?”

• For example, PRIMARY EDUCATION, REPAIRING CARS, CONTRACT CATERING, COMPUTER SERVICING

• If you are a civil servant, write GOVERNMENT

• If you are a local government officer, write LOCAL GOVERNMENT and give the name of your department within the local authority

Feedback from the 2011 Census suggested that freelancers and people working without a business or organisation were unsure about how to answer this question. The question stem was updated to remove “at your workplace” and adding “freelance work” to help people answer this question. The full question stem tested was “What is the main activity of your organisation, business or freelance work?” When this question stem was used, respondents reported they understood the question and answered easily during cognitive testing (2018:14).

We also cognitively tested (2018:14) a question stem that referred to an employer’s industry instead of main activity. However, participants in the test reported that the word “industry” was outdated and was more commonly thought of as referencing specific activities such as manufacturing, rather than being applicable to all activities. Participants also preferred that the question asked about “your organisation, business or freelance work”, rather than “your employer, business or freelance work”. The term “your employer” caused some confusion, with some participants thinking it referred to their line manager rather than the overarching business.

As with the examples of job titles, the examples of industries were reviewed and updated to ensure the right level of detail would be given by respondents. Because of space constraints on paper, the examples had to fit in the same space as those used in the 2011 Census. The online and paper questions were cognitively tested, with and without the example of main activities (2018:14). Results showed that participants preferred to see the examples as they improved comprehension and helped them to give more accurate answers.

Online, the list of example activities includes civil service and government, so these do not appear as separate instructions. This complies with Government Digital Service Standards.

In 2011, those working for the civil service were instructed to write “government”. However, the instruction has been updated to “civil service” to more accurately reflect how many civil servants see their main activity. Online, where there were no space constraints, “civil service DWP” was added to the list of examples to indicate the level of detail expected and to help coding of the data, which also uses data from the organisation name question. However, on paper there was not enough space to add an instruction to tell civil servants to include their department.

Investigating using the name of the organisation and search-as-you-type functionality

We considered the possibility of piping the answer to the organisation name question into the question stem to aid comprehension of the question. In other words, using a question stem of “What is the main activity of ?” However, analysis of the answers given to the organisation name question showed that in many cases using this method resulted in a question that did not make sense because of the format of the name that had been entered by the respondent. Therefore, it was decided not to pipe the organisation name into the question.

As with the job title question, we investigated the use of a search-as-you-type dropdown list to help respondents answer this question more easily. However, we concluded that it would not be beneficial to use search-as-you-type functionality for this question in Census 2021. Further details of our testing are in Annex 1.

Supervisory status

Cognitive testing (2018:14) with members of the public used a version of the question that incorporated an explanation of “supervise” into the question stem: “Do (did) you supervise or oversee the work of other employees on a day-to-day basis?”. Feedback showed that the question was generally understood correctly. However, some participants were confused if informal or irregular supervision should be included, but most of these participants still answered correctly. Instructions on how to answer this question have been added to the online help to reduce respondent burden. This question was also tested quantitatively (2018:37) where no issues were identified.

Travel to work

We began developing the travel to work question by conducting some informal testing (2018:1) with members of Office for National Statistics (ONS) staff. Participants completed a paper questionnaire containing questions from the labour market suite. For the travel to work question the same question stem (“How do you usually travel to work?”) and response options as used in the 2011 Census were used, but with instruction text that incorporated the two instructions used in the 2011 Census into a single instruction. The instruction text read “Tick one box only for the longest part, by distance, of your usual journey”.

Feedback showed that participants felt that the response options should be ordered by popularity, and that the current order did not seem logical. Some participants also commented that the car options (driving or being a passenger in a car), which many people would be looking for, were difficult to see.

We did not change the order of the response options as they are ordered in a way to ensure that respondents answer as accurately as possible. Testing has shown that respondents tend to answer questions as quickly as possible, and often miss more accurate response options if they appear later in the list of response options. For example, “taxi” appears before “passenger in a car” so that respondents who travel by taxi see that option first; if “passenger in a car” appeared first then they might choose that option instead of the more accurate response.

Feedback also showed that participants sometimes missed the instruction to tick only one box, which led to some participants ticking more than one option. Online, radio buttons are used to ensure that only one option is selected.

We tested two variations that incorporated the instructions into the question stem in cognitive testing (2018:14) with 34 participants. We put the instructions into the question stem to minimise the use of instructions, which is recommended in the Government Digital Service Standards.

Version 1

“Thinking about the longest distance of your journey, how do you usually travel to work?”

Version 2

“What transport do you use for the furthest part of your usual journey to work?” – with instruction text “Tick one box only”

Results showed that the phrase “Thinking about the longest distance of your journey” was not understood by respondents and did not indicate to them that only one option should be selected. Participants found the wording in version 2 much clearer to understand, compared with version 1, and were able to answer the question accurately. The recommendation from this testing was to use the wording of version 2.

However, because of concerns about increasing the complexity of the question for a majority of respondents who consistently used only one form of transport, it was decided to use the same wording for the question as in the 2011 Census (“How do you usually travel to work?”), with one instruction text (“Answer for the longest part, by distance, of your usual journey to work”).

The question was taken forward into quantitative testing (2018:37), using an online survey, where no issues were found.

Online, the response options are mutually exclusive, so only one response option can be selected, on paper the instruction text is slightly longer to indicate only one answer should be given: “Tick one box only for the longest part, by distance, of your usual journey to work”.

Place of work and address of place of work

2011 Census “place of work” question

In your main job, what is the address of your workplace?

• If you work at or from home, on an offshore installation, or have no fixed workplace, tick one of the boxes below

• If you report to a depot, write in the depot address

OR

[ ] Mainly work at or from home

[ ] Offshore installation

[ ] No fixed place

The 2011 Census question on location of work combined write-in boxes for the address with mutually exclusive checkboxes, which allowed respondents to record that they worked in other locations, such as at home or no fixed place. This style of question does not conform to Government Digital Service Standards, so we needed to change this question. We began our testing (2018:1 and 2018:7) by reviewing the 2011 Census question to better understand any issues that respondents had with this question.

The results showed that participants found this question difficult to answer on behalf of someone else. Participants commented that it was difficult to know if you should use both the tick-boxes and the address write-in field if you worked from home.

The use of write-in fields and tick-boxes is not recommended in Government Digital Service Standards. Therefore, we investigated separating out the question into two stages.

We tested (2018:14) a two-stage version of this question and conducted cognitive interviews to gather feedback. The first stage asked, “Where do you work?” with response options “At a workplace or report to a depot”, “An offshore installation” and “No fixed place”. If respondents answered, “At a workplace or report to a depot”, then they were automatically routed to a write-in address field that asked “What is the address of your workplace or depot?”. On paper, respondents who had ticked “An offshore installation” or “No fixed place” were routed around the address question.

Feedback showed that most participants found the first stage easy to answer and gave accurate answers. Some participants questioned why the workplace and depot options were not separated. Participants were happy to enter the address of their workplace in the second stage, but some had a problem recalling the address or entered an incomplete address. Some participants also said they would prefer to use an address lookup, which is commonly used for entering addresses online.

As participants had sometimes missed the “or depot” part of the question, the two response options of “workplace” and “depot” were separated on the electronic questionnaire to make the response options clearer. This was not possible on paper because of space constraints. The question stem of the second stage (address) on the electronic questionnaire was tailored to respondents’ previous answer (workplace or depot). For example, if the respondent had indicated that they reported to a depot, the question would be “What is the address of your depot?”

These changes were tested quantitively using an online survey (2018:37), which contained all the questions from the labour market suite. There were no major issues found with the questions, however, the results showed that this question had the highest dropout rate and took the longest time to complete of the labour market questions. When the respondents were asked about problems they had with the questions, around a quarter of those who had a problem answering the questions reported that they did not want to give their employer’s address.

We are currently testing the use of address lookup functionality for this question on the electronic questionnaire.

Investigating using organisation name in the question

We explored the possibility of piping the name of the organisation (which had been previously entered by the respondent) into the question stem by analysing the responses given by the respondents. However, around 15% of the answers given were not appropriate to be piped into the question, for example, because they contained punctuation marks.

In addition, during user experience testing (2018:2), using the piped name led many respondents to question if they should record the address of the head office of the organisation or the office or branch at which they worked. For example, the question might become “What is the address of Tescos?”. Therefore, it was decided not to pipe the name of the organisation or business into this question.

Country of work

Feedback from user experience testing of the workplace address question (2019:1, 2020:2) and the 2019 Rehearsal (2019:15) showed that some respondents who worked abroad found it difficult to enter the address of their workplace in the space provided in the text boxes on the electronic questionnaire. Subsequent research showed that over 50,000 people in the UK work abroad. There is a data requirement to collect data on the country of work for those who work abroad, but no need to collect data about the address.

In previous censuses there was not a specific write-in field for the country of work, so these data were inferred from the write-in field for the address. Collecting the data this way was both costly and time-consuming.

To address the issues of easing respondent burden when answering the question on workplace address, and reducing the cost and time spent processing this data, we considered possible approaches. These approaches included:

1) keeping the same question and instruction that was used in the 2019 Rehearsal

2) adding instructions to help respondents who work overseas answer the question

3) adding a "Outside the UK" response option to the place of work or address of work questions

4) adding extra questions after the place of work question, which asks if the respondent works outside the UK, and if so allows them to select the country of work; respondents would only see the question asking for the country if they report that they work outside the UK

After evaluation of all the approaches, it was decided that option 4 was the best approach to take. Although this approach meant adding an additional question that would be seen by many respondents, the question "Do you mainly work in the UK?" has a short and easy to understand question stem and can be answered by simple "Yes" or "No" response options.

Because of space constraints on the paper questionnaire these questions were only added to the electronic questionnaire. For the paper questionnaire, the final designs will be two questions, the first is "Where do you mainly work?". Respondents who select "At a workplace or report to a depot" are then asked to write in their address. Respondents who select "At or from home", "An offshore installation" or "No fixed place" are routed to the end of the individual section of the questionnaire.

Further testing of the suite of labour market questions in 2018

We tested all the labour market questions using an online survey (2018:37) of members of the public.

Overall, 81.3% of the participants had no issues or problems with any of the labour market questions. Those who were working were significantly more likely to have issues with answering the questions compared with those who were not working.

Of those with issues (18.7% of the participants), the most common reason (26.7%) was that they did not want to disclose their work address, the second most common reason was that they felt uncomfortable disclosing information that they felt was private or confidential (26%).

Changes made after the 2019 Rehearsal

Feedback from the 2019 Rehearsal (2019:15) showed that some respondents questioned why they were asked for the address of their workplace. To address this issue, we added some guidance on why we ask this question to the electronic questionnaire.

Question design for online

In addition to the testing described earlier, the questions have undergone significant user experience (UX) testing (2017:2, 2018:2, 2019:1, 2020:2). UX testing focuses on understanding user behaviours as people interact with online services. Through observation techniques, task analysis and other feedback methodologies, it aims to develop a deep knowledge of these interactions and what it means for the design of a service.

UX research has taken place on a rolling basis since 2017. As of October 2019, 458 interviews have been conducted at 99 events. The UX testing programme will continue through 2020. All participants are purposively selected to include a wide range of ages and digital abilities.

UX testing included various iterations of the questions described elsewhere in this report. Feedback from this research informed decisions made on the design of these questions. For more information on UX testing, see the question and questionnaire development overview for Census 2021.

Welsh language question development

Between 2017 and 2018, an external agency with Welsh-speaking researchers was commissioned to undertake focus groups (2017:17) and a series of cognitive interviews (2017:18). In 2018, further cognitive interviews (2018:41) were undertaken by the same agency. The qualitative research tested public acceptability and comprehension of amended and newly designed census questions in Welsh. The questions were tested with people across Wales with varying dialects and Welsh language proficiencies.

To ensure questions adhere to Cymraeg Clir guidelines some changes to the text or questions across the census questionnaires were translated by our contracted specialist Welsh language translation service provider. These changes were quality assured by the Welsh Language Census Question Assurance Group. This group includes Welsh language and policy experts from the Welsh Language Commissioner and the Welsh Government and was convened to give advice on the accuracy, clarity and acceptability of the language as well as other policy issues pertaining to the Welsh language and bilingual design.

The following recommendations were made.

Employment status

It was recommended to include both “ar liwt eich hun” and “llawrydd” (both meaning freelance) within the response option for “Self-employed or freelance without employees” to improve accessibility.

Industry

The examples of organisations include “y gwasanaeth sifil (Llywodraeth Cymru)” – “civil service (Welsh Government)” instead of “Civil service DWP”.

Place of work

It was recommended to use “adrodd i” (report to) instead of “atebol” (answerable) in the response option “adrodd i ddepo” (report to a depot). “Dim man penodol” (no fixed place) was recommended instead of “Dim gweithle penodol”.

The design of the questions recommended for Census 2021 was informed by the research and testing detailed in this report. The questions and response options for Census 2021 have now been finalised through the census secondary legislation.

 We have published the paper questionnaires for Census 2021 separately.

Guidance text and instructions are not part of the legislation, but we consider these to be finalised as well. However, it is possible that guidance text or instructions may change if there is enough evidence to support doing so.

Like all labour market questions, these questions are only asked if the respondent is aged 16 years or older.

This set of questions will only be asked to respondents that reply "Yes, in the last 12 months" or "Yes, but not in the last 12 months" to the question "Have you ever done any paid work?". In other words, these questions are not asked to individuals who have never done paid work. The text in the questions, instructions and guidance will reference either present or past work, depending on whether the respondent is currently working. The screenshots in this section show questions for those currently working.

The questions on:

• method of travel to work

• place of work

• workplace address

are only asked to respondents who have been employed during the last seven days. These are respondents who answer the question "In the last seven days, were you doing any of the following?" with any of the response options except "None of the above"; for example, they select the response option "Working as an employee". We discuss this question in detail in the Economic activity and hours worked question development for Census 2021 report.

Employment status

Figure 1: Online question on employment status, in English and Welsh

Source: Office for National Statistics

Download this image Figure 1: Online question on employment status, in English and Welsh

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Name of organisation

Figure 2: Online question on name of organisation, asked if aged 16 years or over, in English and Welsh

Source: Office for National Statistics

Download this image Figure 2: Online question on name of organisation, asked if aged 16 years or over, in English and Welsh

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Job title

Figure 3: Online question on occupation, in English and Welsh

Source: Office for National Statistics

Download this image Figure 3: Online question on occupation, in English and Welsh

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Job description

Figure 4: Online question on description of job, in English and Welsh

Source: Office for National Statistics

Download this image Figure 4: Online question on description of job, in English and Welsh

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Main activity of place of work

Figure 5: Online question on main activity of place of work, in English and Welsh

Source: Office for National Statistics

Download this image Figure 5: Online question on main activity of place of work, in English and Welsh

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Supervisory status

Figure 6: Online question on supervisory status, in English and Welsh

Source: Office for National Statistics

Download this image Figure 6: Online question on supervisory status, in English and Welsh

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Travel to work

This question is only asked to those who are currently in work.

Figure 7: Online question on travel to work, asked if aged 16 years or over, in English and Welsh

Source: Office for National Statistics

Download this image Figure 7: Online question on travel to work, asked if aged 16 years or over, in English and Welsh

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Place of work

This question is only asked to those who are currently in work.

Figure 8: Online question on place of work, asked if aged 16 years or over, in English and Welsh

Source: Office for National Statistics

Download this image Figure 8: Online question on place of work, asked if aged 16 years or over, in English and Welsh

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The following text appears below the question:

Why we ask for workplace

Your answer will help your community by allowing the government and councils to understand commuting patterns.

Information about your workplace and how you travel to work are used together to work out local public transport needs, develop transport policies and plan services.

Following this question, respondents are asked if they mainly work in the UK. If they answer “Yes” then they are taken to a screen to enter their workplace address. This question will use standard address lookup functionality. If they answer “No”, then they are taken to a screen to enter the country where they mainly work. This question will use standard search-as-you-type functionality.

Question order

Questions about occupation, industry, hours worked and travel to work, follow the questions on economic activity.

In the 2011 Census, the order of questions about occupation and industry, asked of all those who have ever worked was:

• employment status

• occupation (job title)

• job description

• supervisory status

• industry

• organisation name

These were followed, for those who had a job last week, by:

• workplace address

• travel to work

• hours worked

For Census 2021 UX testing was used to inform the question ordering (2017:2, 2018:2).

Occupation and industry

Organisation name has been placed after the question on employment status. Providing the name of the employer helped participants with more than one job, or who had not worked for a long time, to be clear which job they were answering about in subsequent questions.

Supervisory status has been placed at the end of the occupation and industry sequence. The question order therefore discusses the person, their employer, then other employees.

Workplace address

The hours worked question has been moved to before the questions on travel to work, and workplace location. It continues the sequence of questions on occupation and industry for those currently in employment.

The workplace location questions are asked after travel to work, as it had lower response rates in testing where it was placed before travel to work. To mitigate the risk of participants developing a pattern of non-response, the 2021 Census ordering was considered a logical sequence by participants in testing.

The questions on workplace address collect the same information as in 2011 but are presented in a different order. In the first stage, respondents will record where they mainly work. Those who mainly work at a workplace or depot will be routed to the second stage to record the address. The routing matches the 2011 question such that respondents who work mainly at or from home, on an offshore installation, or at no fixed place do not have to write in an address.

Question evaluation

The question designs put forward in this report are based on extensive research and assessment using evaluation criteria that were set out in the publication The 2021 Census – Assessment of initial user requirements on content for England and Wales: Response to consultation (PDF, 796KB).

The evaluation considered the potential impact that including a question on the census would have on data quality, public acceptability, respondent burden, financial concerns, and questionnaire mode. The evaluations were used in conjunction with the user requirements criteria to steer the development of the census questions and questionnaire.

A question that has been assessed as having a "High" potential for impact is closer to the threshold for exclusion from the census than a question that has been assessed as having a "Low" potential for impact.

After completing the research and development phase, we evaluated the recommended questions against the same criteria using an updated tool that considers the type of evidence we have available and the Census 2021 context. A description of this updated evaluation tool is provided in the Question and questionnaire development overview for Census 2021.

All questions meet our thresholds to ensure reliable information will be collected in Census 2021.

Table 2 provides the updated evaluation scores for the questions. All scores remained the same or were lower than the previous evaluation except for the scores for questionnaire mode. The scores for questionnaire mode increased because of our work on improving the user experience and data quality on the electronic questionnaire. We present the evidence used to assess questions as having a "Medium" or "High" potential for impact on the evaluation criteria in Annex 3.

Question harmonisation

As in previous censuses, there will be separate censuses in Scotland and Northern Ireland. The questions for England and Wales have been developed through close collaboration with National Records of Scotland (NRS) and the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA), who are responsible for conducting the censuses in Scotland and Northern Ireland, respectively.

The censuses in Northern Ireland and Scotland contain very similar questions on occupation, industry and travel to work as the census in England and Wales. However, the questions about the address of a respondent’s workplace, and how they travel to their workplace are slightly different: Respondents are routed to them if they are currently working, studying, or doing both. In addition, the questions ask about the address of their workplace or place of study, and how the respondent usually travels to these places.

We recognise that each country has its own user and respondent needs; however, we aim for harmonisation of census questions and topics where possible in order to produce UK-wide statistics that are consistent and comparable.

The questions were developed for use in the context of Census 2021 in England and Wales, a mandatory household form. Therefore, it is possible that in different contexts, such as social surveys, a different approach may be more suitable.  

We are continuing to test and develop search-as-you-type and address lookup functionality for the workplace address question to reduce the respondent burden and improve the quality of data collected.

In the Census 2021 topic consultation response, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) made clear commitments to the public. We committed to ask the question on the labour market, including occupation, industry and travel to work.

In the labour market topic consultation report (PDF, 809KB) we made commitments to

• review the question on supervisory status to see if these data can be derived from other sources

• explore how the online questions set can improve the collection of the data while still meeting user needs, especially for occupation and industry

• review question guidance, consider improvements possible via online collection, improve data quality and reduce the burden placed on respondents

Exploring whether the question on supervisory status is necessary

We reviewed whether it was necessary to include a question on supervisory status on the census. The data captured by this question are used, along with other data, to derive the National Statistic Socio-economic Classification (NS-SEC). Our investigation, in which we collaborated with academics, concluded that although there were other methods that could be used to derive the NS-SEC, the inclusion of the supervisory status on the census improved its accuracy and removing it would have a negative impact.

You can read more about our investigation and decision in the 2017 and 2018 census topic updates.

Exploring the use of search-as-you-type functionality for occupation and industry

Search-as-you-type functionality allows users to type in the first few characters of a word before a pre-defined list appears in a drop-down to help them complete their answer.

We began our investigation into the use of search-as-you-type by looking at the job title question. In our test, participants could type in four (round 1) or five (rounds 2 and 3) characters before the pre-defined list of job titles appeared. The list of job titles was taken from the Standard Occupational Classification 2010 (SOC 2010).

The intention in using the search-as-you-type functionality on the electronic questionnaire was to reduce respondent burden in answering the question. However, feedback suggested that this feature was not considered useful and not widely liked by participants:

• some were surprised when the drop-down appeared
• many did not realise they could type in an answer not in the list
• some were overwhelmed by the choice of job titles presented to them
• some chose the first job title that appeared when they were typing, rather than looking further down the list for the most accurate response option

The recommendations from the testing of search-as-you-type functionality were:

• make it clearer to respondents that a drop-down list would appear and how to use it
• edit the list of job titles to remove duplicates and those that were very similar, to reduce the number of options presented to respondents

After this testing was completed, it was decided that the work needed to maintain and edit the list of job titles, which contained over 30,000 entries, did not justify the potential benefit of using the search-as-you-type functionality. Therefore, this question was kept as a free-text response.

As with the job title question, we investigated the use of a search-as-you-type dropdown list to help respondents answer the question on main activity of employer. The list of main activities or industries was taken from the Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) 2007. However, the feedback from testing was similar to the feedback to our testing of the job title question. Participants did not find this functionality easy to use or helpful, and it did not help improve data quality. Therefore, we decided not to use a search-as-you-type dropdown for this question for Census 2021.

Reviewing question guidance and improving the collection of data via the electronic questionnaire

As detailed earlier in this report, we have tested each question both online and on paper to ensure that the questions are easy to answer and collect accurate data.

Although our testing showed that search-as-you-type functionality was not appropriate to use for questions on job title or main activity, this functionality will be used in the question on country of work, where respondents who work outside the UK can select the country where they work. Testing has shown that respondents benefit from having search-as-you-type functionality for this question.

We are currently developing and testing the use of address lookup functionality for the workplace address question. This type of functionality helps respondents answer quickly and accurately.

References to tests take the form (Year: Test number). "Year" refers to the calendar year the test was undertaken in and the test number is the position of the test within the year considering all testing that took place in that year. For example, the fifth test conducted in 2017 would be referenced as (2017:5).

A full description of each of these items can be found in summary of testing for Census 2021.

Evaluation of employment status question

Potential for impact on all criteria was evaluated as “Low”.

Evaluation of organisation name question

Potential for impact on public acceptability was rated as “Low”.

Potential for impact on data quality: “Medium”

The question requires respondents to write in their answer. Testing (2018:14) showed that this question can be problematic for respondents who have complex working situations, for example, people who are freelance or those with multiple jobs. Feedback from the 2019 Rehearsal (2019:15) showed that the non-response rate was over 7%.

Potential for impact on respondent burden: “Medium”

Feedback from the 2019 Rehearsal (2019:15) showed that some respondents found this question difficult to answer, and the question had a non-response rate of over 7%. In addition, this question can be difficult to answer on behalf of someone else.

Potential for impact on financial concern: “High”

This question requires all relevant respondents to write in an answer, and all write-in responses require additional processing. In the 2019 Rehearsal (2019:15) more than 10% of the answers required manual coding.

Potential for impact on questionnaire mode: “Medium”

This question has mutually exclusive response options that are enforced online by using radio buttons. Results from the 2019 Rehearsal (2019:15) showed that more than 1% of respondents to the paper questionnaire selected more than one mutually exclusive option.

Evaluation of job title question

Potential for impact on all criteria except financial concerns were rated as “Low”.

Potential for impact on financial concern: “High”

This question requires all respondents to write in an answer, and all write-in responses require additional processing. In the 2019 Rehearsal (2019:15), nearly 40% of the answers required manual coding.

Evaluation of job description question

Potential for impact on all criteria except financial concerns and questionnaire mode were rated as “Low”.

Potential for impact on financial concern: “High”

This question requires all respondents to write in an answer, and all write-in responses require additional processing. In the 2019 Rehearsal (2019:15), more than 10% of the responses required manual coding.

Potential for impact on questionnaire mode: “Medium”

Results from the 2019 Rehearsal (2019:15) showed that, on average, most people wrote more text online than would fit into the available space on paper.

Evaluation of main activity of employer or business question

Potential for impact on public acceptability was rated as “Low”.

Potential for impact on data quality: “Medium”

This question requires a write-in response and could be difficult to answer on behalf of someone else. Feedback from the 2019 Rehearsal (2019:15) showed that the non-response rate and average time taken to answer this question was higher than expected.

Potential for impact on respondent burden: “Medium”

This question has long instruction text and requires respondents, who may have not worked for a long time, to recall the organisation they worked for and its industry. Feedback from the 2019 Rehearsal (2019:15) showed that the average time taken to answer this question was higher than expected.

Potential for impact on financial concern: “High”

This question requires respondents to write in an answer, and all write-in responses require additional processing. In the 2019 Rehearsal (2019:15), nearly 40% of the answers required manual coding.

Potential for impact on questionnaire mode: “Medium”

There are multiple visual differences between the write-in response online and on paper, For example, online, the instructions for this question are in one block of text, and on paper the instructions are in bullet points.

Evaluation of supervisory status question

Potential for impact on all criteria were rated as “Low”.

Evaluation of travel to work question

Potential for impact on all criteria were rated as “Low”.

Evaluation of place of work question

Potential for impact on all criteria were rated as low, except for respondent burden.

Potential for impact on respondent burden: “Medium”

The number and length of the response options has increased since the 2011 Census. Feedback from the 2019 Rehearsal (2019:15) showed that some respondents found this question difficult to answer.

Evaluation of workplace address and country of work question

Potential for impact public acceptability and financial concerns were rated as ”Low”.

Potential for impact on data quality: “Medium”

This question has a write-in response and can be difficult to answer on behalf of another person. Results from the 2019 Rehearsal (2019:15) showed that some respondents found the question difficult to answer and, on average, respondents spent more time answering this question than was expected.

Potential for impact on respondent burden: “Medium”

Feedback from the 2019 Rehearsal (2019:15) showed that some respondents reported the question was difficult to answer. In addition, respondents spent, on average, more time than was expected answering this question, and more respondents than expected used the “Previous” button to review their answer.

Potential for impact on questionnaire mode: “Medium”

Online, there is guidance to inform respondents why we ask this question. Online there is an extra question (“Do you mainly work in the UK?”) that is not on the paper questionnaire. If respondents answer “No” to the question they will see another question asking for their country of work. Analysis of the 2019 Rehearsal (2019:15) showed that respondents who answer on paper are more likely to be retired and no longer working and would be routed around these questions. Therefore, the risk of mode effects is lower than might be expected, since most respondents who are required to answer this question will be using the electronic questionnaire.