Economic Estimates: Employment in the Digital Sector, January 2024 to December 2024
Source: gov.uk (2025-07-10)

Official Statistics in Development estimating the number of filled jobs in the Digital Sector, derived from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) Annual Population Survey (APS). This includes both employed and self-employed individuals, and part-time and full-time employment.

Headline findings
- These statistics indicate a decrease in Digital Sector filled jobs from 1.89 million in 2023 to 1.77 million in 2024; this is the first decrease reported in the last 10 years. This decrease in Digital Sector employment follows a period of rapid growth from 2019 to 2022 and a plateau in growth between 2022 and 2023.
- Digital Sector filled jobs fell by approximately 120,000 or 6.3% between 2023 and 2024. By comparison, employment in the UK overall increased by approximately 63,000 filled jobs or 0.2% from 34.01 million in 2023 to 34.07 million in 2024.
- The Digital Sector accounted for 5.2% of the UK’s filled jobs in 2024, down from 5.6% in 2023.
- Between 2023 and 2024, the largest decreases in employment were in the ‘Computer programming, consultancy and related activities’, ‘Publishing (excluding translation and interpretation activities)’ and ‘Telecommunications’ subsectors, down 50,000, 47,000 and 21,000 filled jobs respectively.
- The proportion of filled jobs held by female workers in the Digital Sector was 28.5% in 2024, a slight decrease from 29.1% in 2023. The proportion of filled jobs held by disabled workers was 15.1% in 2024, a slight increase from 13.7% in 2023. The Digital Sector continued to under-represent these groups compared to the UK overall (within which 48.1% were female workers and 18.4% were disabled workers).
- Filled jobs in the Digital Sector held by individuals aged 16-24 decreased by 39.6% or approximately 66,000 filled jobs from 2023 to 2024. The proportion of filled jobs held by individuals aged 16-24 continued to be lower than the UK overall at 5.7% of filled jobs compared with 10.6% for the UK.
Released

10 July 2025

About this release

The statistics in this series (including this release) will be classed as Official Statistics in Development until further review. Previous releases in this series have been classed as Accredited Official Statistics – meaning they comply with the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics. The Office for Statistics Regulation (https://osr.statisticsauthority.gov.uk/what-we-do/) (OSR) has now removed accreditation (https://osr.statisticsauthority.gov.uk/correspondence/ed-humpherson-to-jessie-evans-request-to-remove-accreditation/) at our request (https://osr.statisticsauthority.gov.uk/correspondence/jessie-evans-to-ed-humpherson-request-to-remove-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 Digital Sector Economic Estimates: Employment series depends upon.

These statistics are used to provide an estimate of the number of filled jobs in the Digital Sector, for the period January 2024 to December 2024.

This is a continuation of the Digital Sector Economic Estimates: Employment Calendar Year release series, previously produced by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS). Responsibility for Digital and Telecommunications policy now sits with the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT).

Data sources and technical information

These findings are calculated based on the published Office for National Statistics (ONS) Annual Population Survey (APS). ONS has reported concerns with the quality of estimates for smaller segments of the APS population, meaning there is more uncertainty with estimates produced from this data. Furthermore, the increased volatility of APS estimates due to low sample sizes affects the validity of any observed changes in Digital Sector employment estimates.

In response to these concerns this series has been reclassified to Official Statistics in Development, in line with ONS’s decision to consider their APS based labour market statistics as Official Statistics in Development until further review. In addition to reclassifying this series as Official Statistics in Development, we have produced coefficient of variation data to indicate the level of statistical robustness for each employment estimate in this release. More detail on this can be found in the technical report.

In future we will also review the statistical robustness of employment estimates in previous releases of the series, so that we can provide a full picture of how the APS issues have affected our Digital Sector estimates over time.

The APS provides data on an individual level for both a respondent’s first job, and if applicable, a respondent’s second job as separate variables. Respondents are filtered on whether they are “in work” across these two variables, by whether for their “first job” they are an employee or self-employed, and whether for their “second job” they are an employee, self-employed or have otherwise not stated.

As “employment” is estimated as the number of filled jobs, the data is restructured to be on a per job basis, rather than a respondent basis. Estimates are calculated by selecting entries that are relevant for a particular measure and demographic breakdown. Reported values are then aggregated over their associated population weights to generate an estimate of the total number of filled jobs.

Users should note that values presented in this dataset are self-reported, which may impact the accuracy of the reported data. There can also be low sample sizes in some of the sub-sectors and demographic breakdowns leading to the data not being presented due to data suppression from disclosure risk. The APS gives more access to detailed demographic information than other comparable datasets allowing for more comprehensive analysis of demographic breakdowns.

The technical guidance contains further information about data sources, methodology, and the validation and accuracy of these estimates. The latest version of this guidance was published alongside this release in July 2025.

Content

These statistics cover employment (filled jobs) in the Digital Sector and its subsectors alongside UK totals.

Feedback

We aim to continuously improve the quality of estimates and better meet user needs. We welcome feedback on this release. Feedback should be sent via email to xxx@xxx.xx (mailto:xxx@xxx.xx).

Office for Statistics Regulation

Our statistical practice is regulated by the Office for Statistical Regulation (OSR). OSR sets the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics (https://code.statisticsauthority.gov.uk/the-code/) that all producers of official statistics should adhere to.

You are welcome to contact us directly with any comments about how we meet these standards by emailing xxx@xxx.xx (mailto:xxx@xxx.xx). Alternatively, you can contact OSR by emailing xxx@xxx.xx (mailto:xxx@xxx.xx) or via the OSR website (https://osr.statisticsauthority.gov.uk/).

Pre-release access

The accompanying pre-release access document lists ministers and officials who have received privileged early access to this release. In line with best practice, the list has been kept to a minimum and those given access for briefing purposes had a maximum of 24 hours.

Contact

Responsible statistician: Rory Attwell

For any queries or feedback, please contact xxx@xxx.xx (mailto:xxx@xxx.xx).