Join us at the upcoming UK census user conference on June 12 and 13, for updates from the UK Data Service census team and UK census agencies, as well as presentations by researchers using UK census data.
The UK Data Service is hosting this free conference in central Manchester, with online attendance available for those who can’t make it in person.
Book your place for the 2025 UK census conference.
Featured speaker
We’re thrilled to announce our keynote speaker, Jeni Tennison, Founder and Executive Director of Connected by Data.
Jeni will discuss the importance of user and public voice in official statistics. What kind of say should they have over statistics? How can statistics producers work with them to ensure public acceptability?
Jeni will outline the challenges and opportunities identified from a recent project between Connected by Data and the Office for Statistics Regulation.
Census agencies updates
The conference will feature the following updates from UK census data producers:
- Approach to population and migration statistics (England and Wales)
- Census geographies: Past, present and future
- Meeting user needs: Geographical building blocks for the census in Northern Ireland
- Scotland’s 2022 Census – accessing samples of anonymised records
Accessing census data via the UK Data Service
Members of the UK Data Service census team will discuss and demonstrate new ways of accessing census data via UK Data Service tools. We will also be around throughout the conference if you have any questions.
We’re particularly interested in learning from you how we can improve your experience of accessing aggregate data.
Read on to the end of this post to learn more about what different parts of the census team have been working on.
Research using census data
Across three parallel sessions, a variety of researchers using UK census data will present their work.
Themes covered will include deprivation, geographies, and longitudinal data.
Presenters represent the Home Office, the Office for National Statistics, The Higher Education Statistics Agency, the Royal British Legion, as well as a number of UK and international universities.
Looking to the future
The conference will also conclude with a session exploring the potential future of the UK censuses.
Book your place for the 2025 UK census conference.
And there’s more…
Read on to find out about recent developments across the UK Data Service census offering.
Aggregate data
England and Wales data from the 2021 census is available from Data Explorer – our new tool which can subset data for you down to ward level.
Bulk downloads of all 2021 and 2022 census data (along with 1971 through to 2011) are available from our CKAN.
We have also made data at the new 2023 UK parliamentary constituency level available. This blog post gives some more information.
Flow data
Flow data, also known as origin and destination data, are census records relating to the movement of people between two locations.
They are valuable for policymaking, as they inform both local and central government decisions in areas such as education, healthcare, housing, and transport. Due to their two-location structure, they are considered the most complex type of UK census data.
The UK Data Service is the sole provider of access to safeguarded census flow data. We currently offer data from the 1981 to 2021 censuses and also provide support to users in accessing and using the data.
We are now undertaking a complete revamp of access to the UK Census Flow Data. Our current tool, WICID, which has served users for almost a quarter of a century, is reaching the end of its life and will be replaced by a modern API-driven platform.
The new platform supports industry-standard specifications, and the interface is being developed in line with best practices in responsive and accessible design wherever feasible. The platform will offer versatile data discovery and extraction capabilities, including advanced subsetting features.
As part of the upgrade of our services, we are also experimenting with the latest technological innovations, including the incorporation of Generative AI to help researchers discover and retrieve flow data more quickly and easily.
Boundary data
Census-related boundary data and resources such as postcode directories provide critical referencing information for researchers integrating their own data. This holds true whether the data are used in a geographical information system (GIS) or a statistical analysis package such as Stata or R.
Knowing where an event or individual is located is a fundamental dimension of social science research.
The United Kingdom has one of the most complex and dynamic geographical referencing frameworks in the world, and guiding users through this complexity is a unique aspect of the UKDS Census.
We offer expert guidance on the use of our comprehensive (and unique) back catalogue of geospatial, census-related resources, and our staff can assist with both the methodological and practical aspects of using the data.
Furthermore, in forthcoming developments that will supplement the release of the 2021/22 UK census geography outputs, we will enable programmatic machine interfaces to help users access and automate the use of these data via industry-standard web service application programming interfaces (APIs).
Our census team will be well represented at the UK census user conference, so join us for a chat!
Comment or question about this blog post?
Please email us!