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UK cities

Employment rates for selected UK cities, UK and Scotland, 2004 - 2023
Chart showing employment rates in UK cities from 2004-2023. Employment rates have fluctuated over the last two decades but have risen in most cities over the last ten years. The employment rate in Glasgow has risen from a low point in 2012 (58%) to 71% in 2023. Glasgow's employment rate is mid-ranking among this selection of UK cities, and below the Scottish and UK average rates.

Percentage in full-time employment, aged 16-64 in selected UK cities, Scotland and UK, 2023

Chart showing rates of full time employment in UK cities in 2023. In Glasgow, 90.8% of working-age men and 63.9% of working-age women who are in empoyment, work full time. Both are above the UK average – 88% for men, 63.6% for women. The full-time employment rate for men is higher in Glasgow than in any of the other cities shown, but the rate for women is closer to the average. The lowest rate for men in the cities shown was in Manchester, where 80.4% of men in work were working full time. The lowest rate for women was in Sheffield, where 55.8% of women were working full time. The lowest gender gap was in Manchester, where there was 12.1 percentage point gap between men and women working full time. 

Job density: the number of jobs per working-age resident and is used as indicator of labour demand. A job density greater than one indicates that there is more than one job per person for the working age population. Glasgow has consistently had a job density slightly higher than one over the last two decades; in 2021, Glasgow's job density was 1.03. Job density has risen in Manchester in the last decade to 1.23 in 2021, the highest level among UK cities outside of London. Birmingham, Liverpool and Sheffield have consistently had low job density over the last two decades.

Employment rates by gender in selected UK cities, Scotland and UK, 2023
Chart showing rates of employment by gender in UK cities in 2023. In 2023, male employment rates were higher than female employment rates in Scotland, in the UK and in most of the selected UK cities, with the exception of Sheffield, where the female employment rate was 0.5 percentage points above the male rate. 

Liverpool had the lowest female employment rate (60.3%) of the cities compared, while Birmingham had the lowest rate for males (71.5%). Edinburgh had both the highest female employment rate (80.6%) and the highest male employment rate (83.8%).

Migrant workers as a percentage of total in employment aged 16-64 in selected UK cities and Scotland, 2023

Chart showing the proportion of workers in UK cities who were born outside of the UK in 2023. In 2023, workers born outside the UK made up 18% of the workforce in Glasgow, lower than the UK (20%) average, but higher than the Scottish average (14%). The cities with the highest percentage of migrant workers were Nottingham (38%) and Birmingham (36%). The lowest rates were in Leeds (13%) and Newcastle (13%). 

Notes

The Annual Population Survey (APS) combines results from the Labour Force Survey (LFS) and the English, Welsh and Scottish Labour Force Survey boosts. It is the primary source for information on local labour markets, providing headline estimates on employment, unemployment and economic activity, and is the largest annual household survey in Scotland.

The LFS definition of employment is anyone (aged 16 or over) who does at least one hour’s paid work in the week prior to their LFS interview, or has a job that they are temporarily away from (e.g. on holiday). Also included are people who do unpaid work in a family business and people on government supported employment training schemes, in line with ILO definitions.

The headline employment rate is the proportion of the working-age population who are in employment. The working-age population comprises men aged 16-64 and women aged 16-59 and therefore  takes account of the school-leaving age but does not align completely with the state pension age, which has risen in recent years.

The full-time/part-time split is based on respondent self-classification. Respondents are asked whether they work full-time or part-time in their main job.

The measure of migrant workers used is defined as: people in employment who were not born in the UK, expressed as a percentage of all people in employment in an area.  

This page was updated in February 2025.

Further reading under ‘Employment’