Census 2021 attributes with geography, England and Wales
2021 Census data for England and Wales. The dataset contains no personal identifiers and excludes travel to work, sexual orientation or gender identity variables.
The 2021 Census of England and Wales is the largest national survey undertaken by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) every 10 years. The total population in 2021 was 59,597,542, of which 56,490,048 were in England and 3,107,494 were in Wales.
The census provides information on demographics, households that government needs to develop policies, plan and run public services, and allocate funding. This is the first Census 2021 dataset delivery for the Integrated Data Service, containing all Census records and includes all attribute variables (except travel to work, sexual orientation and gender identity) with no identifiable variables.
The data will contain the Reference Data Management Framework (RDMF) address index identifiers. Data currently provided in the data for dwellings and occupied and unoccupied household spaces are being revised to provide more accurate estimates for these concepts. Please do not use the current data on these.
We expect the revised data for these concepts to be available in the data in February 2023. Other data, including data for households (rather than household spaces), are unaffected. For ethnicity analysis, the Ethnic_group_tb, variable should be used, not Ethnic19_20. Ethnic19_20 was developed as a test variable and will not match previously published figures. Work is currently underway to remove Ethnic19_20 from the Final Unit Record Data (FURD) as it is no longer required.
All data hosted on the Integrated Data Service (IDS) are de-identified.
Important information about this dataset
Census 2021 data is available on the Integrated Data Service (IDS) and is accessible to accredited researchers. Interested researchers can request access to Census 2021 data via the Research Accreditation Service (RAS).
Census 2021 is a large, complex dataset that must be safeguarded for it to be used for research. Part of that safeguarding is ensuring that researchers only have access to the variable level information that is required for their specific research purpose.
The IDS will be implementing Lower-Level Access Controls (LLAC) for Census 2021 data, which will provide a secure and efficient data access process, granting access to the precise information needed while safeguarding the sensitive data.
Until LLAC is in place bespoke data engineering work is needed to meet the requirements of each project. IDS is working through requests as quickly as we can, but there are delays in accessing the data when compared to other requests.
We appreciate your patience whilst we strive to deliver against our commitment to the UK Statistics Authority’s priority regarding proportionality, as well our obligations under the Digital Economy Act (DEA).