Public sector employment, UK: September 2024

• There were an estimated 6.12 million employees in the public sector in September 2024, an increase of 26,000 (0.4%) compared with June 2024, and an increase of 63,000 (1.0%) compared with September 2023.
• Employment in central government was a record high at an estimated 3.97 million in September 2024, an increase of 28,000 (0.7%) compared with June 2024 and an increase of 113,000 (2.9%) compared with September 2023; the main contributors to this increase were the NHS, some local authority schools becoming academies, and the Civil Service.
• The NHS employed an estimated record high of 2.04 million people in September 2024, an increase of 12,000 (0.6%) compared with June 2024 and an increase of 57,000 (2.9%) compared with September 2023.
• Employment in public corporations was an estimated 157,000 in September 2024, an increase of 4,000 (2.6%) compared with June 2024, but a decrease of 39,000 (19.9%) compared with September 2023; part of the annual decrease is impacted by a reclassification between March 2024 and June 2024.
• Employment in local government was an estimated 1.99 million in September 2024, a decrease of 6,000 (0.3%) compared with June 2024 and a decrease of 11,000 (0.6%) compared with September 2023; some local authority schools becoming academies contributed to this decrease.
• There were 548,000 employees in the Civil Service in September 2024, an increase of 2,000 (0.4%) compared with June 2024 and an increase of 19,000 (3.6%) compared with September 2023.

Revisions to estimates

In this release we have revised the public sector employment estimates back to June 2012 to incorporate the reclassification of English further education institutions. More details are available in Section 3: Data sources and quality.

Reclassification of further education institutions in England and revisions to public sector employment estimates

On 29 November 2022, we announced the reclassification of further education corporations, sixth form college corporations, and designated institutions in England from the non-profit institutions serving households (NPISH) sector to the central government sector. Our Economic statistics sector classification – classification update and forward work plan: November 2022 article has more information on this classification decision.

For this month's release, we have implemented this reclassification and revised the total public sector, central government, and education quarterly data time series back to June 2012.

Other revisions have been made to the public sector employment estimates back to the start of the quarterly data time series in 1999. We also reviewed the seasonal adjustment process for the public sector employment data series, with revisions from the review producing minor revisions back to 1999.

Labour Force Survey reweighting and revisions to total and private sector employment estimates

Estimates of total employment and private sector employment derived from the Labour Force Survey (LFS) have been revised in this release from September 2011 onwards.

We have reweighted LFS estimates to incorporate information on the size and composition of the UK population, based on 2022 mid-year estimates. For England, Wales and Northern Ireland they are projected forward using scaling factors from 2021-based National Population projections, published in January 2024. For Scotland they are projected forward using scaling factors from 2020-based National Population Projections, published in January 2023.

Given time constraints, we have only been able to reweight LFS data from January to March 2019 onwards. Therefore, this reweighting exercise creates a discontinuity between the December 2018 and March 2019 non-seasonally adjusted UK and regional total and private sector series where there will be a step change in LFS estimates. However, we have modelled the seasonally adjusted UK levels of employment back to June to August 2011, to ensure that headline levels of total and private sector employment can be assessed without a discontinuity.

Important note: Reweighting increases the levels of all labour market statuses but does not address issues surrounding increased LFS volatility, resulting from smaller achieved sample sizes. An increased amount of volatility will remain until the recent improvements that have been implemented fully feed through the survey, so we would advise caution when interpreting change in headline rates and recommend using them as part of our suite of labour market indicators, alongside Workforce Jobs, Claimant Count and Pay As You Earn Real Time Information (PAYE RTI) estimates.

These LFS estimates are official statistics in development. 

For further information, please see our Impact of reweighting on Labour Force Survey key indicators article.

Coronavirus

For more information on how labour market data sources were affected by the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, see our Coronavirus and the effects on UK labour market statistics article.

View our Comparison of labour market data sources and the main differences article.

Sources

The main source of public sector employment (PSE) data is the Quarterly Public Sector Employment Survey, which is supplemented by data from external sources. Further information can be found in our PSE quality and methodology information (QMI).

Full-time equivalents

While this bulletin focuses on headcount estimates of PSE, full-time equivalent estimates (based on the number of hours worked divided by the standard full-time hours) are available in our accompanying PSE datasets.

Seasonal adjustment

All PSE data time series in this release, with the exception of the regional series, are seasonally adjusted to aid interpretation. Relationships that hold in the unadjusted series do not necessarily hold for the seasonally adjusted series. For example, total PSE equals the total of all public sector industry estimates before seasonal adjustment, but this is not necessarily true after seasonal adjustment.

Reclassifications between the public and private sectors

Comparisons of public and private sector employment over time are complicated by several major reclassifications. This is where bodies employing large numbers of people have moved between the public and private sectors. We produce estimates of public and private sector employment excluding the effects of major reclassifications to help you understand underlying trends in employment. We publish these alongside estimates of total public and private sector employment in Tables 5, 6a and 7a of the PSE datasets.

More quality and methodology information

More quality and methodology information on strengths, limitations, appropriate uses, and how the data were created is available in our Public sector employment QMI.

Accredited official statistics

These accredited official statistics were independently reviewed by the Office for Statistics Regulation in April 2022. They comply with the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics and should be labelled "accredited official statistics".