Industrial sector of workers by size of built up area: data from the 2011 Census

Using the classification of Built Up Areas at the Lower Super Output Area (LSOA) level recently published in 'Best fit of lower super output areas to built up areas'. It investigates the differences and similarities of the distribution of workers by industrial sector across different sizes of Built Up Area.

Main points

• The report shows an example of using the best fit for Built Up Areas classification with LSOA data. It examines differences and similarities between rural and urban areas of Wales. The report examines the industrial sectors that people living in Wales work in across settlements of various sizes.
• The report shows a very mixed pattern of working. Out of the 1,909 LSOA in Wales, 10 have a single sector accounting for at least 30% of the workers living in that area. The largest share is slightly below 50%. More typical would be for the largest sector in an area to account for between 15% and 25% of the total workers living in that area.
• The share of employment in the agriculture sector is, as we would expect, much higher in the areas with smaller settlement sizes. There are 37 LSOA where agriculture is the largest single sector. The largest share of workers in this sector is just over 27%. In the most rural category (settlements of under 2,000 people in the Sparsest Context) just under half the LSOA have at least 10% of their workers in the agriculture sector.
• The largest sectors in Wales are retail, health, manufacturing and education. These sectors tend to be the largest employers across all of the Built Up Area size groups.