DCMS Sector Economic Estimates: Employment
Source: gov.uk (2025-10-28)

This series brings together the most up to date DCMS Sector employment (number of filled jobs) datasets.

Headline finding

As of the 2024 calendar year, the DCMS Sectors (excluding Tourism) make up 11.7% of all UK filled jobs

About

DCMS employment estimates provide an overview of those working in the DCMS Sectors and the UK overall. They provide a measure of the number of jobs supported by industries within DCMS’s remit, and of the characteristics of the workforce by demographic group. This enables assessment of the contribution of DCMS industries to the UK economy, and a greater understanding of access to employment in the DCMS Sectors.

All estimates on this page represent the latest version according to updates in methodology.

Included estimates:

Call for feedback:

We are seeking further views on the pausing of our quarterly publications, please see the notice further below (#feedback).

DCMS releases two separate estimates for employment:
- headline measures of employment (number of filled jobs) are calculated based on the Office for National Statistics Annual Population Survey (APS). These estimates are produced on a rolling quarterly basis with each dataset covering a 12 month period (4 quarters). These estimates contain a measure of headline employment in the DCMS Sectors (and UK overall) as well as breakdowns by various demographic characteristics
- employment estimates for social mobility and socio-economic background are based on the Office for National Statistics Labour Force Survey (LFS). Data on social mobility is only available for quarter 3 (July to September) of each year from 2016 onwards. Headline measures of employment are also available in these data tables but should not be used as the primary source for this information
For information on how these estimates are produced please see the relevant technical report for each release.

Latest release:

Economic Estimates: Employment in DCMS sectors, April 2024 to March 2025.

Notice on Accreditation:

On 4 August 2025, the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) temporarily suspended the accreditation (https://osr.statisticsauthority.gov.uk/correspondence/ed-humpherson-to-sarah-alloway-lasher-suspension-of-official-statistics-accreditation/) from this employment series, at our request (https://osr.statisticsauthority.gov.uk/correspondence/sarah-alloway-lasher-to-ed-humpherson-suspension-of-official-statistics-accreditation/), following ONS reporting concerns (https://osr.statisticsauthority.gov.uk/correspondence/michael-keoghan-to-siobhan-tuohy-smith-request-to-suspend-aps-accreditation/) with the quality of estimates for smaller segments of the APS population, which the DCMS Sector Economic Estimates: Employment series depends on.

Due to the ongoing challenges with response rates, response levels and weighting, the accreditation of ONS statistics based on Annual Population Survey (APS) was temporarily suspended (https://osr.statisticsauthority.gov.uk/correspondence/michael-keoghan-to-siobhan-tuohy-smith-request-to-suspend-aps-accreditation/) on 9 October 2024. Because of the increased volatility of both Labour Force Survey (LFS) and APS estimates, the ONS advises that estimates produced using these datasets should be treated with additional caution. ONS statistics based on both the APS and LFS will be considered official statistics in development until further review.

Following the ONS reporting concerns regarding the quality of the APS estimates, particularly for smaller segments of the population, we conducted analysis to understand the quality of DCMS employment estimates. Consequently, we have concerns regarding increased volatility due to low APS sample sizes and its impact on the reliability and quality of our estimates. The statistics in this series will be classified as official statistics in development until further review. Previous releases in the series have been classified as accredited official statistics, meaning that they have been independently assessed by the OSR as complying with the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics.

Call for Feedback

We are seeking user feedback on a proposal to pause our DCMS Sector Economic Estimates quarterly employment publications and continue to publish only the calendar year annual employment estimates.

Due to quality issues (https://osr.statisticsauthority.gov.uk/correspondence/michael-keoghan-to-siobhan-tuohy-smith-request-to-suspend-aps-accreditation/) with the low sample size of the ONS Annual Population Survey (APS), the underlying data source for DCMS employment estimates, we have seen increased volatility and uncertainty in our employment estimates. This has impacted the reliability and quality of our estimates, making harder to detect changes over time. As a result, we do not think that the rolling 12-month quarterly estimates currently provide much additional information compared to our annual calendar year estimates. We are therefore proposing to pause our quarterly employment releases to focus on other statistical work.

We will continue to publish annual calendar year estimates and the next publication will be the January to December 2025 release, provisionally planned for June 2026.

We will review whether or not to return to publishing rolling quarterly releases as the quality of the underlying ONS data improves, in line with user needs.

We welcome feedback and views on this proposal. If you have any comments, please contact xxx@xxx.xx (mailto:xxx@xxx.xx) by Wednesday 12th November.