The dataset provides borough-level estimates of employee jobs by sector, modelled by GLA Economics using a variety of official data for 1971-1995, ONS Business Register and Employment Survey (BRES) and Workforce Jobs (WFJ) data from 1996 onwards.
Borough employee data from BRES and WFJ is different due to their methodology and coverage. We applied Iterative Proportion Fitting (IPF) technique to align them. We start with the borough-by-sector shares obtained from BRES and calibrate these with control totals:
The IPF algorithm then adjusts each of the borough-by-sector shares until they sum to the control totals.
Small sectors were aggregated, and section G (Wholesale and retail trade; repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles) was split into G1 (Wholesale) and G2 (Retail). Section T (Activities of households as employers; undifferentiated goods-and-services-producing activities of households for own use) and section U (activities of extraterritorial organisations and bodies) are excluded.
The full description of sector details is in the table below.
| Abbreviated sector name | Full description |
|---|---|
| Accommodation & food | Accommodation and food service activities |
| Admin & support | Administrative and support service activities |
| Arts & recreation | Arts, entertainment and recreation |
| Construction | Construction |
| Education | Education |
| Finance & insurance | Financial and insurance activities |
| Health | Health |
| Information & comms | Information and communication |
| Manufacturing | Manufacturing |
| Other services | Other services |
| Primary & utilities | Primary & utilities |
| Professional & real estate | Professional, real estate, scientific and technical activities |
| Public admin & defence | Public administration and defence |
| Retail | Retail |
| Transport & storage | Transport & storage |
| Wholesale | Wholesale |
More details of the modelling approach are available in the methodology page and the cover sheet of the accompanying Excel workbook. The approach is also set out in GLA Economics (2017) London’s boroughs: borough by sector jobs, data and methodology.