DOI: 10.5255/ukda-sn-8991-2
title: Annual Population Survey, April 2021 - March 2022
title: Annual Population Survey, 2004-
title: APS

description: &lt;p&gt;The &lt;i&gt;Annual Population Survey&lt;/i&gt; (APS) is a major survey series, which aims to provide data that can produce reliable estimates at local authority level. Key topics covered in the survey include education, employment, health and ethnicity. The APS comprises key variables from the &lt;i&gt;Labour Force Survey&lt;/i&gt; (LFS) (held at the UK Data Archive under GN 33246), all its associated LFS boosts and the APS boost. Thus, the APS combines results from five different sources: the LFS (waves 1 and 5); the English &lt;i&gt;Local Labour Force Survey&lt;/i&gt; (LLFS), the &lt;i&gt;Welsh Labour Force Survey&lt;/i&gt; (WLFS), the &lt;i&gt;Scottish Labour Force Survey&lt;/i&gt; (SLFS) and the &lt;i&gt;Annual Population Survey Boost Sample&lt;/i&gt; (APS(B) - however, this ceased to exist at the end of December 2005, so APS data from January 2006 onwards will contain all the above data apart from APS(B)). Users should note that the LLFS, WLFS, SLFS and APS(B) are not held separately at the Archive. For further detailed information about methodology, users should consult the &lt;i&gt;Labour Force Survey User Guide&lt;/i&gt;, selected volumes of which have been included with the APS documentation for reference purposes (see 'Documentation' table below).&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt; The APS aims to provide enhanced annual data for England, covering a target sample of at least 510 economically active persons for each Unitary Authority (UA)/Local Authority District (LAD) and at least 450 in each Greater London Borough. In combination with local LFS boost samples such as the WLFS and SLFS, the survey provides estimates for a range of indicators down to Local Education Authority (LEA) level across the United Kingdom.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;2022 Reweighting: Revision of Grossing Factors to be done&lt;br&gt;&lt;/span&gt;Over the last year, the LFS team have been working on reweighting datasets to account for newly delivered RTI tax information, adjusting Northern Ireland non-responses, and fixing the grossing factors where England and Wales had been combined (rather than doing them separately). This culminated in the ongoing release of datasets, notably Annual Population Survey datasets released on 20 July (UKDS editions were released in August 2022).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;It has since been identified that while two of these issues were revised, the grossing factors for England and Wales were not fully revised. This means that error remains in the calculation of some of the population weights in the Annual Population Survey and therefore the age breakdown of the population in both England and Wales remains affected to a small extent. The most recent datasets (Oct2020-Sep2021 and onwards) are not affected, and breakdowns for the UK as a whole would be largely unaffected. The affected annual datasets are for Apr2019-Mar2020 to Jul2020-Jun2021 inclusive, and these datasets will need to be revised. ONS anticipate this will be done in the labour market statistics release due on 13 September 2022. Further information will be released in due course.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;b&gt;End User Licence and Secure Access APS data&lt;/b&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;p&gt; Users should note that there are two versions of each APS dataset. One is available under the standard End User Licence (EUL) agreement, and the other is a Secure Access version. The EUL version includes Government Office Region geography, banded age, 3-digit SOC and industry sector for main, second and last job. The Secure Access version contains more detailed variables relating to:&lt;/p&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;age: single year of age, year and month of birth, age completed full-time education and age obtained highest qualification, age of oldest dependent child and age of youngest dependent child&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;family unit and household: including a number of variables concerning the number of dependent children in the family according to their ages, relationship to head of household and relationship to head of family&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;nationality and country of origin&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;geography: including county, unitary/local authority, place of work, Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics 2 (NUTS2) and NUTS3 regions, and whether lives and works in same local authority district&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;health: including main health problem, and current and past health problems&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;education and apprenticeship: including numbers and subjects of various qualifications and variables concerning apprenticeships&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;industry: including industry, industry class and industry group for main, second and last job, and industry made redundant from&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;occupation: including 4-digit Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) for main, second and last job and job made redundant from&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;system variables: including week number when interview took place and number of households at address&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;The Secure Access data have more restrictive access conditions than those made available under the standard EUL. Prospective users will need to gain ONS Accredited Researcher status, complete an extra application form and demonstrate to the data owners exactly why they need access to the additional variables. Users are strongly advised to first obtain the standard EUL version of the data to see if they are sufficient for their research requirements.&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt; &lt;b&gt;Documentation and coding frames&lt;/b&gt;&lt;br&gt; The APS is compiled from variables present in the LFS. For variable and value labelling and coding frames that are not included either in the data or in the current APS documentation (e.g. coding frames for education, industrial and geographic variables, which are held in LFS User Guide Vol.5, Classifications), users are advised to consult the latest versions of the LFS User Guides, which are available from the ONS &lt;a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/methodologies/labourforcesurveyuserguidance" title="Labour Force Survey - User Guidance" target="_blank"&gt;Labour Force Survey - User Guidance&lt;/a&gt; webpages.&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt; &lt;b&gt;APS Well-Being Datasets&lt;/b&gt;&lt;br&gt; From 2012-2015, the ONS published separate APS datasets aimed at providing initial estimates of subjective well-being, based on the &lt;i&gt;Integrated Household Survey&lt;/i&gt;. In 2015 these were discontinued. A separate set of well-being variables and a corresponding weighting variable have been added to the April-March APS person datasets from A11M12 onwards. &lt;b&gt;Users should no longer use the bespoke well-being datasets (SNs 6994, 6999, 7091, 7092, 7364, 7365, 7565 and 7566, but should now use the variables included on the April-March APS person datasets instead&lt;/b&gt;. Further information on the transition can be found on the &lt;a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/wellbeing/bulletins/measuringnationalwellbeing/2015to2016" title="Personal well-being in the UK: 2015 to 2016" target="_blank"&gt;Personal well-being in the UK: 2015 to 2016&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt; &lt;b&gt;Disability variables from 2013 onwards - LFS and APS&lt;/b&gt;&lt;br&gt; ONS have provided some information on changes since 2013 to the disability variables available on the LFS and APS. The Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) disabled (current disability) category within the historic DISCURR variable no longer corresponds with the advised legal definition of 'current disability'. DISCURR should only be available on LFS microdata from Spring 1998 to January-March 2013 (JM13); beyond that point users should ignore or delete it. In addition, the same 'DDA disabled (current disability)' category within variable DISCURR13 is also not the most appropriate variable to use because a) it is not comparable to the corresponding category in variable DISCURR due to question changes, and b) it no longer measures either the DDA definition of disability or the latest Equality Act definition of disability. However, DISCURR13 is available from the April-March 2013 quarter (AJ13) onwards and was introduced to demonstrate that the variables used to compile DISCURR had also changed from that quarter. Therefore, users are advised to use the disability variable DISEA from AJ13 onwards, which reflects the Equality Act 2010 legal definition of 'disabled', measured according to the &lt;a href="http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/guide-method/harmonisation/primary-set-of-harmonised-concepts-and-questions/long-lasting-health-conditions-and-illnesses--impairments-and-disability.pdf" title="GSS Harmonised Standard" target="_blank"&gt;GSS Harmonised Standard&lt;/a&gt; on health conditions and illnesses. The harmonised disability variables DISEA and DISCURR13 should both be present on the APS person microdata from April 2013-March 2014 (A13M14) onwards. This ensures that APS users have a complete 12 months' data on which to base analysis of the variables. DISCURR should only be present on APS microdata up to and including April 2012-March 2013 (A12M13).&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt; &lt;b&gt;Variables DISEA and LNGLST&lt;/b&gt;&lt;br&gt; Dataset A08 (Labour market status of disabled people) which ONS suspended due to an apparent discontinuity between April to June 2017 and July to September 2017 is now available. As a result of this apparent discontinuity and the inconclusive investigations at this stage, comparisons should be made with caution between April to June 2017 and subsequent time periods. However users should note that the estimates are not seasonally adjusted, so some of the change between quarters could be due to seasonality. Further recommendations on historical comparisons of the estimates will be given in November 2018 when ONS are due to publish estimates for July to September 2018. &lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt; An article explaining the quality assurance investigations that have been conducted so far is available on the &lt;a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/methodologies/analysisofthediscontinuityinthelabourforcesurveydisabilitydataapriltojune2017tojulytoseptember2017" target="_blank"&gt;ONS Methodology&lt;/a&gt; webpage. For any queries about Dataset A08 please email Labour.Market@ons.gov.uk.&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Occupation data for 2021 and 2022 data files&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The ONS have identified an issue with the collection of some occupational data in 2021 and 2022 data files in a number of their surveys. While they estimate any impacts will be small overall, this will affect the accuracy of the breakdowns of some detailed (four-digit Standard Occupational Classification (SOC)) occupations, and data derived from them. None of ONS' headline statistics, other than those directly sourced from occupational data, are affected and you can continue to rely on their accuracy. For further information on this issue, please see: &lt;a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/news/statementsandletters/occupationaldatainonssurveys"&gt;https://www.ons.gov.uk/news/statementsandletters/occupationaldatainonssurveys&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Latest edition information&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;For the second edition (February 2023), education variables HIQUAL22, HIQUL22D, LEVQUL22 and QUAL21_1 to QUAL21_39 have been replaced in the data file, with previous miscalculations corrected.&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;