Employment by occupation

North East occupations in 2023

In the calendar year from January to December 2023, among workers in North East workplaces:

• About 45% were in managerial, professional, associate professional and technical occupations
• just over 21% were in administrative, secretarial and skilled trades occupations
• almost 18% were in caring, leisure, sales, customer services and related other service occupations
• the remaining 16% were process, plant and machine operatives, or working in elementary occupations.

• Of the 26 occupation subgroups, four were responsible for almost a third of North East employment in 2023:
  • administrative occupations  (e.g. finance and payroll administrators, Government administrators, and sales administrators)
  • elementary administration and service occupations (e.g. catering assistants, cleaners, and waiting staff)
  • business and public service associate professionals (e.g. financial advisers, civil service associate professionals, and estate agents)
  • science, research, engineering and technology professionals (e.g. biochemists, R&D managers, electrical engineers, and web design professionals).

• Compared to England excluding London, in 2023 the North East had particularly large percentages of workers in:
  • administrative occupations
  • customer service occupations (e.g. telephonists, call centre occupations, and market research interviewers)
  • sales occupations (e.g. shopkeepers, vehicle salespersons, and pharmacy and optical dispensing assistants)
  • science, research, engineering and technology associate professionals (e.g. laboratory technicians, draughtspersons and IT user support technicians).

Recent trends

Focusing on employment by occupation in North East workplaces:

• Compared to 2022, employment had particularly increased among:
  • Science, research, engineering and technology professionals
  • business & public service associate professionals
  • customer service occupations
  • administrative occupations.
• It had particularly decreased among:
  • Elementary administration and service occupations
  • caring personal service occupations.

• Compared to the pre-Covid year of 2019, employment had particularly increased among:
  • Business & public service associate professionals
  • administrative occupations
  • science, research, engineering and technology professions
• It had particularly decreased among:
  • caring personal service occupations
  •  elementary administration and service occupations
  •  skilled construction and building trades occupations.

• Over the past two decades, employment in the broad managerial, professional, associate professional and technical occupations category had increased
• employment in other broad occupation groups had either decreased or remained unchanged. 

Additional detail

In 2023, the occupation breakdowns of female and male workers in the North East varied:

• Female workers were more likely to be in administrative and secretarial occupations; caring, leisure and other service occupations; and sales and customer service occupations
• male workers were more likely to be in skilled trades occupations; work as process, plant and machine operatives; and, to a lesser extent, to be managers, directors and senior officials
• there was a similar likelihood that female and male workers were in professional, associate professional and elementary occupations.

Within the North East, in 2023:

• Managerial, professional, associate professional and technical occupations made up a greater percentage of employment in Newcastle and North Tyneside workplaces than elsewhere
• the percentage of employment in these occupations was lowest in Sunderland
• as a result of this, Sunderland had the highest percentage of employment within each  of the other three broad occupation groups
• in absolute terms, Newcastle had the highest total of workers in managerial, professional, associate professional and technical occupations, with County Durham having the highest totals in the other three broad groups
• Newcastle's workplace employment total in 2023 was much higher than the resident employment total, leading to high levels of in-commuting from other North East local authority areas
• the only other area with a net in-commute was Sunderland, but this was much smaller than Newcastle's and entirely due to in-commuting managers, professionals, associate professionals and technicians
• there was a net out-commute of more than 10,000 workers in these occupations from each of North Tyneside, Northumberland, County Durham and Gateshead.

About occupational employment data

The Office for National Statistics uses the Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) to provide data about how employment is broken down by occupation. The data on this page is based on responses from workers rather than businesses and these responses are summarised using the classification.

At a local level, statistics are available for nine groups and 26 subgroups, with the former being more robust for smaller areas. The data is available on a workplace and residence basis. Most of the charts on this page use workplace data to provide information about employment within the North East rather than among North East residents.The exception combines local workplace and residence employment totals to provide an indicator of net commuter flow by occupation.

This page uses the new SOC2020 classification for charts of 2023 data. An earlier classification (SOC2010) is used for extended comparisons over time. 

Employment totals do not include unfilled vacancies. Hence, changing employment totals for an occupation can reflect a combination of changes in the number of available posts and changes in the percentage of posts that are filled.