About this data

Source: ONS, Labour market overview, UK: October 2026

• People are unemployed if they don't have a job, have looked for work in the past four weeks and can start in the next two. The unemployment rate is the share of economically active people (those in work or looking for it) who are unemployed.
• Annual averages, from the Labour Force Survey.
• Fewer people have answered the Labour Force Survey since 2020, so estimates for recent years are less certain, especially for smaller groups (shaded on the chart). In November 2023 the Office for Statistics Regulation removed their accredited official statistics status. ONS has since raised response, but only to around one in four households, and plans to replace the survey with a transformed version as its main measure in 2027.

This chart appears in Employment and wages.