Wage and employment dynamics in Britain

ADR UK is working with the University of the West of England (UWE), University College London (UCL), City, University of London and the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) on Wage and Employment Dynamics (WED), a data linkage project which aims to provide important new insights into the dynamics of earnings and employment in Britain.

This project is expected to increase understanding of how people’s wages progress through their career, factoring in key characteristics such as gender and ethnicity, as well as the particular dynamics of low-pay labour markets. 

The dataset 

ADR UK partner the Office for National Statistics (ONS) is supporting the linkage of three key data sources for this project:

• Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE, Great Britain) – which measures employee earnings. 

• Business Structure Database (BSD) - which is a snapshot in time of all the firms in the UK registered for VAT and/or Pay As You Earn (PAYE). 

• 2011 Census data (England and Wales)– a detailed snapshot of the population and its characteristics. 

• HMRC Pay as you Earn Real Time Information (PAYE RTI) / Self-Assessment data (England and Wales) - providing data related to employment spells and earnings, as well as income from occupation pensions, Child Benefit and Tax Credit.

What is the potential of this newly linked data? 

This project has the potential to transform our understanding of wage and employment issues from labour market entry, through job mobility and career progression to retirement decisions. 

The insights provided by the WED project could be key to informing responses to crucial policy challenges facing the UK, such as reducing in-work poverty – according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, 58% of those in relative poverty now live in a working household. This demonstrates a need for better understanding of how to support people in their career and wage progression, in addition to getting more people into employment more broadly. 

The WED project will also provide insights to help address systemic inequalities within the labour market, such as the gender pay gap – now standing at 8.9%. 

Key questions this newly linked dataset could help to address include: 

• How do the structure and earnings of households affect participation in the labour market? 

• What role do employers play in wage inequality? 

• Who does and does not progress out of low pay employment? 

The Wage and Employment Dynamics dataset will be made available to external researchers via the ONS Secure Research Service towards the end of 2020, or early 2021. Researchers will need to be approved and submit a successful application to access the data. Check back here for more information coming soon. 

Project details

• Researchers include Professor Felix Ritchie (project lead) and Damian Whittard, University of the West of England, Professor Alex Bryson, University College London, Lucy Stokes, National Institute of Economic and Social Research, and Dr John Forth, City University.
• Funded value: £764,614.00
• Duration: October 2019 - June 2022

This project is funded via the ADR UK Strategic Hub Fund, a dedicated fund for commissioning research using newly linked administrative data, in consultation with the former Research Commissioning Board (RCB).

Details of the funding grant awarded by ADR UK to UWE for this project can also be found on the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Gateway to Research platform.

Visit the Wage & Employment Dynamics website to stay up to date with this project.