Why It Matters
Job Classifications & Salary Statistics
Summary
We have categorised all the jobs available in a given postal district into four distinct groupings (Managerial and Executive Jobs, Skilled Function Support and Managed Professionals, General mid-low skilled, Repeat Function). The prevalence of jobs in each category for each postal district are then calculated.
Interpretation
| Dataset | Explanation |
|---|---|
| Number of Vacant Jobs in Postal District | This tells you the total number of vacant positions available in the postal district, as advertised on indeed.com in February and August of the selected year. |
| Percentage of Managerial and Executive Jobs in Postal District | This tells you the percentage of jobs in the postal district that qualify as Managerial and Executive Jobs. |
| Percentage of Skilled Function Support and Managed Professionals in Postal District | This tells you the percentage of jobs in the postal district that qualify as Skilled Function Support and Managed Professionals. |
| Percentage of General Mid-Low Skilled Jobs in Postal District | This tells you the percentage of jobs in the postal district that qualify as General Mid-Low Skilled Jobs. |
| Percentage of Repeat Function Jobs in Postal District | This tells you the percentage of jobs in the postal district that qualify as Repeat Function Jobs. |
| Harmonised Score of Diversification / Job Class Distribution Measure (Simpsons Index) | This is an indicative score that lets you know how well distributed the four categories of jobs are in your postal district. For example, if all four job categories had equal shares of the total available positions in the area (each having 25%), then the Score of Diversification would be 100. If, on the other hand, all jobs in your neighbourhood, belonged to a single category of jobs with there being no other jobs available from any other class, then the Score of Diversification would be closer to 0. |
Definition
Using the International Standard Classification of Occupations, we have defined four different categories that jobs, with ” Category 1” being jobs that demand the highest amounts of responsibility and decision-making that affect large groups of people, and “Category 4” being jobs that require the least. An explanation of each category is as follows:
| Classification | Explanation |
|---|---|
| Managerial and Executive jobs | These jobs often require university level education and necessitate the job holder to make important decisions in directing a company or organisation, and how that company or organisation’s resources are used. This category also includes professionals that have a governing body that regulates entry into and participation in their profession. This includes chief executives, managing directors, science and engineering professionals, medical professionals, financial professionals, I.T. developers, creative professionals, and vets. |
| Skilled Function Support & Managed Professionals | This category covers jobs that are semi-technical and/or semi-skilled but are oriented towards the discharge of a company or organisation’s functions, such as operations, development, and sales, rather than making decisions that have a large sway over the organisation’s direction. This includes jobs such as: (1) Hospitality and retail managers, (2) Complementary medical professionals and assistants, (3) Primary and secondary school teachers, (4) Office clerks (5) Chefs, (6) Trade workers such as builders, painters, joiners, and carpenters, (7) Craft workers. |
| General mid-low skilled | These are jobs that require a particular amount of knowledge to execute, but are not practicably beyond the reach of the vast majority of the population. This includes (1) Shop staff, (2) Sales workers, (3) Machine operators, (4) Manufacturing assembly staff, (5) Taxi, van, HGV and delivery drivers, (6) Waiters and bartenders, (7) Hairdressers and beauticians, (8) Security service workers. |
| Repeat Function | These are jobs that require little to no training and include (1) Cleaners, (2) Labourers, (3) General attendants such as concierges and receptionists, (4) Food preparation assistants, (5) Refuse workers. |
Why the metric matters from a commercial inhabitant’s perspective
For commercial residents, understanding the economic value (i.e. going salary rate) of jobs on offer in your area will be valuable in determining three things. Firstly, and more related to commercial operations that serve a local population, it will give insight as to the nature of the clientele that populates your area during the working week, and how dramatically the population in your area will change outside of typical working hours. For example, if you have a high concentration of category 1 jobs in your area, you can expect workers to inhabit the area for more than 8 hours per day, and be in the area at all hours, including, possibly on weekends.
Secondly and of most interest to those looking to extend their commercial reach into new areas, the concentration of the category 1 to 4 jobs, present in the area, will indicate the extent to which local tastes will be more suited to goods and services most often purchased by high earners with access to more disposable income or better suited to lower salary earners who spend a greater proportion of their income on non-discretionary goods and services. Lastly employers who have a good understanding of the Salary Expectation levels will find it easier to meet the salary expectation of staff and avoid under or overpaying for skills and labour.
Why the metric matters from a residential inhabitant’s perspective
If you are looking to move house, understanding what kinds of jobs people generally work in your local area might be valuable to you. It will give you an idea as to what kind of people work and potentially live in your area, and what their incomes and economic status is like. This will allow you to decide if you want to live in areas with people that are similar or different to you, and to what degree you prefer that to be. Additionally, the more equal the distribution of jobs in your area, the more diverse you can expect an area to generally be. For example, an area with a number of trade workers is likely to look a lot different to an area populated by investment bankers.
It can also give a good indication of what kinds of goods and services will be available in your local area, depending on how long a specific job market has been present in your area; so, it may be worth taking into consideration if there is a large amount of disparity between your own income and the average income of workers in your area.
The shape of an area can also change quite dramatically as a direct result of shifts in job markets, as jobs are generated from the births of new businesses, expansions of existing ones, and the relocation of others. Similarly, jobs are lost from the deaths, downsizing, and relocation of businesses with a given area. Keeping an eye on how this data changes over time can give a very useful indicator on what the future of an area might look like, and how this will not only affect the culture, services, and amenities that exist within a given location, but how property and rent prices may change too.
General commentary
The kinds of jobs that people work has a large impact on the shape of a given area. Not only do the kinds of incomes available to people shape the amenities such as restaurants, bars, shops, and sports facilities, but also the way that goods are consumed.
For example, people with higher incomes will be able to afford to eat out or purchase food from restaurants more often, and will be willing to shop in small local grocery stores multiple times per week, as opposed to people with lower incomes who may do one large grocery purchase from a big supermarket once per week. Commercial venues will also differ depending on the distribution of jobs in an area, since different forms of entertainment are generally preferred between different incomes and professions. Working patterns will also be varied, as those that work around-the-clock jobs such as construction, security, and medicine often have to work night shifts. Those in managerial and executive jobs will almost always work very long hours, and as a result will use facilities in the area in which they work, rather than their local area.
(Photograph: Jorge Royan, Wikimedia Commons)
History
Jobs are defined as professions - labour that one performs in order to obtain a salary, and are generally seen as separate from one’s home or domestic life through binary terms such as ‘work’ and ‘play’, ‘work-life balance’ or terms that construct opposites alone such as ‘free time’ or ‘leisure time’.
However, this was not always the case. Until the industrial revolution and the widespread introduction of wage labour, there was no distinction made between labour, whether it was work performed as a service to someone else, domestic work in one’s home, or menial tasks such as preparing food or maintaining one’s possessions and property. In the interests of keeping factories running around the clock and maximising efficiency, your average London industrial worker was in the factory for 10-16 per day. While it was this great effort that built London into the city that it is today, it was not humane, and quite unsustainable. This led to the introduction of the “8-hour work day”, proposed by Robert Owen under the slogan “Eight hours labour, eight hours recreation, eight hours rest”.
Fast forward half a century, and The International Standard Classification of Occupations was created by the International Labour Organisation (“ILO”) by the United Nations. The ILO was created in 1919 as part of the Treaty of Versailles in the wake of the First World War. There was a great interest in social justice for workers in securing peace throughout the globe, as the exploitation of workers in industrialising nations was widespread at the time. There was also a greater appreciation of the need for international co-operation to obtain a universal standard of working conditions in all nations. Today, the ILO focuses on ensuring social justice is at the heart of all economic and social policies of the UN member states and that workers’ rights are respected across the globe.
Trivia
The most recent Business Register and Employment Survey (2017), shows that 483,000 people are employed in the City of London. This represents 9% of Greater London’s employment, and 1.6% of the GB’s total employment, meaning that over 1 in 63 of the GB’s workforce are employed in the City.