Research and Innovation Workforce Survey, UK
Includes data from the 2022 UK Research and Innovation Workforce Survey. The survey covers several themes.
Eligibility and sampling
We have used a broader definition than the definition provided by the OECD’s Frascati manual to capture the UK Research and Innovation (R&I) workforce.
This survey includes workers who are responsible for product or process innovation or introduce innovative technologies to their market or organisation (see the 2022 R&I Workforce Survey report and technical report for more information). Lacking an existing sample frame for the R&I workforce, the research took the form of an online survey with an open link that could be shared widely. Recruitment channels are listed in the official report (Section 2.3 Methodology).
Note that while the survey was UK-wide it is not UK-representative.
Fieldwork
The survey was officially launched on 2nd March 2022 and remained open until 13th May 2022. 7,519 eligible respondents completed the survey. We aimed for the survey to take a maximum of 20 minutes to complete, and the average time taken was 17 minutes.
Sample representativeness
Survey is representative of most occupations considered to be R&I, when comparing the UK Labour Force. Comparison with OECD data suggests the sample under-represented workers in private organisations, and over-represented workers in other types of organisations. (Section 5 Weighting).
The survey also seems to over-represent workers in Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), particularly in the private sector. 68% of the private sector workers covered in our survey worked in SMEs compared to 61% of the entire R&D workforce defined through relevant SOC codes applied to the Labour Force Survey (LFS) 2020. Due to the available sample frames for recruitment, 65% of responses received were from the UKRI grant-holder list and a further 18% were from Innovate UK’s list of applicants.
All data hosted on the Integrated Data Service (IDS) are de-identified.