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About the Integrated Data Service : Who can access

The Integrated Data Service (IDS) is designed for government analysts, devolved administrations, and external accredited researchers.

You must be an accredited researcher to access data in the IDS, as stated by the Digital Economy Act (DEA) 2017.

Getting accredited

To apply for individual accreditation, you must:

If you meet these criteria, you can apply through the Research Accreditation Service (RAS) (opens in a new tab) 

You do not need to re-apply if you are already accredited.

As part of your application, you will need to complete our safe researcher training and pass a final assessment.

Once you have successfully completed your assessment, you will receive an email from the RAS team confirming your accredited researcher status.

If you have any questions about the application process, email IDS.customer.support@ons.gov.uk (opens in a new tab) 

Skills required for using the service

To work with data in the Integrated Data Service (IDS) you will need to have experience with using open-source programming languages, such as Python and R for analysis.

You should be comfortable with using these to:

  • import and export data
  • manipulate data
  • perform analysis using code
  • create basic data visualisations

You should also be comfortable using an Integrated Development Environment (IDE), such as JupyterLab or JupyterNotebook.

If you are not familiar with these languages, the Data Science Campus offers introductory R and Python training courses to government analysts (opens in a new tab) 

There are also courses on learning Python and R available through Codecademy (opens in a new tab) 

The service also uses GitHub for version control and to enable better collaboration.

As the IDS evolves and responds to the needs of our users, we may introduce new tools to help analysts and researchers work with their data efficiently.