Census Archive (2011 Census and prior)

New historical census sources and advances in record linking technology are allowing economic historians to become big data genealogists.

In this talk hosted by the London School of Economics, James Feigenbaum shows how the ability to link individuals over time, and between databases, means that new avenues for research have opened up, thus allowing us to track intergenerational mobility, assimilation, discrimination and the returns to education.

The response to the coronavirus pandemic has been driven by data. Never before have statistics been so crucial in informing decisions that affect us all. Pete Benton explains how the ONS will be maximising the value of the data collected from Census 2021 and how it aims to provide ever more timely statistics moving forwards.

The AMSR (Archive of Market and Social Research) have recently added several 1961 Census reports, showing how census results were published in those days, and a much more recent presentation explaining the Classification of Workplace Zones from the 2011 Census.

UNECE is one of five regional commissions of the United Nations. It holds annual workshops and expert meetings on international censuses and aspects of data collection.

The Key and Quick Statistics tables for the United Kingdom bring together data from the 2011 Censuses conducted in England and Wales, in Scotland, and in Northern Ireland, to provide UK harmonised data for areas throughout the United Kingdom. These UK tables were released by ONS in 2014 as downloadable files, and have now been added to the wide range of Census data available through nomis

The Office for National Statistics is the UK's largest independent producer of official statistics, covering the UK's economy, society and population, including the UK Census. It is the recognised UK National Statistical Institute.The new complete redesigned ONS website has been launched, following extensive feedback from the July 2015 Beta version. The search and navigation tools have been significantly improved, as has the overall performance and general appearance. Nearly 150,000 redirects enable users to find existing content and much of the older content that has been moved to the National ArchivesONS is retaining a full time team to regularly maintain and enhance the website. More about development of the new website is available in the Digital Publishing Blog.

Please see the official website of National Records Scotland. This organisation is planning the 2021 Census in Scotland. 

This page provides links to the consultations that have taken place on the 2021 Census.

The concept of a Household Reference Person (HRP) was introduced in the 2001 Census (in common with other government surveys in 2001/2) to replace the traditional concept of the 'head of the household'. HRPs provide an individual person within a household to act as a reference point for producing further derived statistics and for characterising a whole household according to characteristics of the chosen reference person.

ONS has released a new 2011 Area Classification for Output Areas (2011 OAC), produced by University College London on behalf of ONS. With this three-tier classification, the release includes, cluster codes and names for the 8 supergroups, 26 groups and 76 subgroups in the classification for all UK output areas, together with supporting material, including a map for the supergroups and groups, a methodology note, pen portraits describing each of the supergroups/groups/subgroups, and radial plots showing the value of 60 Census variables used to produce the OAC.

Origin-destination data (also known as flow data) includes the travel-to-work and migration patterns of individuals, cross-tabulated by variables of interest (for example occupation).

A series of paper published by ONS as part of the Beyond 2011 programme.

The statistics in this release are a new presentation of the data released as part of the Key Statistics and Quick Statistics for output areas in England and Wales that were published 30 January 2013. They provide new best fit aggregations of these statistics for health administration areas and postcode sectors in England and Wales, and also for National Assembly for Wales constituencies and Assembly for Wales electoral regions. The estimates are best-fitted from output areas in line with the Geography Policy for National Statistics.

This release contains detailed geographical breakdowns and detailed Quick Statistics tables for residents' characteristics.

A report on the population estimates of the UK by age and sex, from the 2011 Census

ONS have published Key Statistics for local authorities in England and Wales from the 2011 Census. This release marks the beginning of the release of detailed information about the characteristics of the people living in England and Wales on 27 March 2011. The data can be accessed from here:

The home page for the UK Data Service Census Support. The site contains information on a huge range of census-related issues.

This page from the ONS website provides information on the area classifications derived from 2011 Census data.

Social Grade is the 'common currency' social classification (the 'ABC1' system) used by the advertising industry and employed throughout marketing and market research. This site provides details of the new approximation to Social Grade available in the outputs from the 2011 Census. A report is available which describes the development of the algorithm and accuracy achieved, and evaluates the discriminatory power of the approximation in comparison with ‘true’ Social Grade. 

The official UK government site for UK statistics and research

ONS continues to investigate the feasibility of moving to a census based on administrative data after 2021. Learn about progress and ONS’s research outputs by visiting the census transformation website

The ONS site for the 2011 Census, containing links to all aspects of 2011.

The UK Data Service home page for census flow data. Census flow data (also known as interaction data) relate to the movement of people between places. These can be regular short distance moves such as the daily commute to work, or less frequent - and sometimes longer distance - moves such as migration to a new home or an extended stay in a second address.

Flow data differ from other Census data in that they link two locations - an origin and a destination. With two geographies, flow datasets can be much larger than other Census data products."

Gateway page to ONS information on 2011.

On-line access to the latest census news released by the Office for National Statistics.

On-line access to the latest census news released by the General Register Office for Scotland.

The official website of the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency. The site contains plans for the 2021 Census, details about the 2011 Census and earlier censuses.

The latest reports and presentations can be downloaded from here:

The Census Historical Data Support (CHDS) Team has embarked on a series of projects to digitise historical census outputs and make them publicly available. The first of these ‘statistical archaeology’ projects is focused on the 1961 Census Small Area Statistics (SAS). The 1961 SAS tables have been split into three types and have been released as a Beta in three stages. The first stage focuses on tables related to the 100% sample and was published on 28 Janaury 2021 and is available to view via Nomis.

The second stage of the 1961 SAS release focuses on tables related to the 10% sample and is now available on Nomis (published April 2021). 

The final stage of the 1961 SAS beta release, the remaining 100% sample tables, is also now available (published May 2021). Please see the ONS website for more information about the 1961 SAS digitisation project and how to access the data.

ONS has published a statement (22 January 2021 ) on how it is ensuring that everyone can be safely counted in in the 2021 Census within the context of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

The legislation to hold the 2021 Census in England and Wales on 21 March 2021 was approved by Parliament last summer. The Census (England and Wales) Order, which sets the date of the census and the particulars to be collected became laws 20 May 2020 following debates and votes in both Houses of Parliament. The Census Regulations subsequently came into force on 23 June 2020 in England and 26 June in Wales. The Regulations include many of the operational details of the census, as well as exact copies of the paper questionnaires and descriptions of the online questionnaires.

ONS has published (2 October 2020) a summary of its evaluation of the 2019 Collection Rehearsal for the 2021 Census in England and Wales. It details the main findings and lessons learned that we will be carrying forward to the main Census in 2021 from both the collection rehearsal (which covered households and communal establishments), and the Census Coverage Survey (CCS) rehearsal that immediately followed it.

As part of the ongoing Historical Census Digitisation Project, The Office for National Statistics, working in partnership with the University of Salford Pattern Recognition and Image Analysis lab (PRImA) and Nomis, have produced the next batch of digitised statistical outputs which are now available to explore and download via Nomis.

This release is focused on tables from the 1921 Census and covers topics including age, sex, orphanhood, and marital status. For the first time searchable, digital versions of the 1921 tables have been created, capturing a key point in our history post First World War One and the Spanish flu pandemic. The tables can be accessed and downloaded via the Nomis website. 

This is the first batch of several releases focused on 1921, with more being added once they are complete.