Tax year 2018-19

Career pathways: post-16 qualifications held by employees

Data guidance

Published 25 May 2022

Description

This document describes the  contents of the underlying data files accompanying this statistics publication. There is a methodology document that is that contains further information on the statistics published here.

Coverage

Employees living in England born between September 1988 and August 1993. Employees must be in PAYE sustained employment in the 2018-19 tax year and must not be studying at a Higher Education provider in the 2018/19 academic year. Employees must also be matched to an SIC code in the IDBR.

File formats and conventions

The underlying data files are provided in comma separated value (csv) format.

Employee numbers are rounded to the nearest 10, annual median earnings are rounded to the nearest 100 and percentages are provided to the nearest one decimal place. Figures have been suppressed with the value ‘u’ for annual earnings based on fewer than 10 employees and ‘c’ for percentages where the numerator is less than 3 or the denominator is less than 6. Employee numbers below 5 are replaced with ‘low.’

Data files

All data files associated with this releases are listed below with guidance on their content. To download any of these files, please visit our data catalogue.

Employee numbers and median earnings by region, sector, subsector, level and subject

• Filename: medianearningsandvolumesbyregionsectorsubsectorlevelandsubject.csv
• Geographic levels: National; Regional
• Time period: 2018-19
• Content:

  Data showing employee numbers and median earnings by region, sector, sub-sector, level and subject area.

  Employee numbers are presented as volumes and as percentages by level, sector and sub-sector, region and subject area.

  This dataset includes the full cohort of employees. It is designed to work with the table creator tool.

Variable names and descriptions

Variable names and descriptions for this file are provided below:

Variable name	Variable description
employees	Number of employees
level_group	Highest qualification level - Filter by highest qualification level
median_earnings	Median annual earnings
pct_level	Proportion of employees by level
pct_region	Proportion of employees by region
pct_sector	Proportion of employees by industry sector
pct_subject	Proportion of employees by subject
pct_subsector	Proportion of employees by industry subsector
sector	Industry sector - Filter by industry sector
subject	Subject of highest qualification - Filter by subject of highest qualification
subsector	Industry sub-sector - Filter by industry sub-sector

Footnotes

1. Data are restricted to employees born between September 1988 and August 1993. These employees turned age 25-30 in the 2018-19 tax year.

Qualification pathways for high earning employees

• Filename: pathshighearningemployees.csv
• Geographic levels: National; Regional
• Time period: 2018-19
• Content:

  This is the underlying data used to create this interactive pathways visualisation in the career pathways dashboard. The pathways visualisation provides a summary of common qualification pathways followed by top earning employees of each industry sector and in each region.

  Top earning employees are those who are in the top third of earners in their region and sector.

  Qualification pathways are constructed from regulated qualifications achieved by employees in post-16 education at level 2 and above. Basic skills qualifications, unregulated provision and qualifications achieved at school, such as GCSEs, are excluded. AS Levels and smaller qualifications that are taken alongside A Levels or larger level 2 and 3 qualifications as also excluded.

  This file is designed to provide access to the underlying data for this publication rather than for use with the table creator tool.

  pct_employees is the proportion of employees for a given qualification who went on to achieve the subsequent qualification.

  qual_rank is the ranking of the starting qualification by number of employees, within the region, sector and starting level,

  dest_rank is the ranking of the subsequent qualification by number of employees, within the region, sector and starting level.

Variable names and descriptions

Variable names and descriptions for this file are provided below:

Variable name	Variable description
dest_rank	destination ranking by number of employees - Filter by destination rank
employees	Number of employees
level_group	Highest qualification level - Filter by highest qualification level
next_level_group	Level of subsequent qualification
next_qual_title	Subsequent qualification title
next_subject	subject of subsequent qualification
pct_employees	Proportion of employees by subsequent qualification
qual_rank	Qualification ranking by number of employees - Filter by qualification rank
qual_title	Qualification title - Filter by qualification title
sector	Industry sector - Filter by industry sector
subject	Subject of highest qualification - Filter by subject of highest qualification

Footnotes

1. Data are restricted to employees born between September 1988 and August 1993. These employees turned age 25-30 in the 2018-19 tax year.
2. Excludes qualifications at below level 2 and qualifications achieved prior to post-16 education (e.g. GCSEs).

Top qualifications by region and industry sector ordered by employee numbers

• Filename: medearningsandvolumesbytopquals.csv
• Geographic levels: National; Regional
• Time period: 2018-19
• Content:

  Data showing the top qualifications held by employees in each region, sector and subsector group. The qualifications are ordered by the number of employees who hold them and are based on the highest qualification held by employees.

  The data are restricted to qualification in the top 40 by number of employees for each region, sector, subsector and level. If a qualification is not in the top 40, it is still included if at least 100 employees hold it.

  The table only includes qualifications at level 2 or higher that were achieved in post-16 education. Qualifications achieved at school, such as GCSEs, are excluded.

  This file is designed to provide access to the underlying data for this publication rather than for use with the table creator tool.

  Pct_qual is the proportion of employees in the region, sector and subsector who hold the qualification.

  qual_rank is the ranking of the qualification by number of employees within the region, sector, subsector and level.

Variable names and descriptions

Variable names and descriptions for this file are provided below:

Variable name	Variable description
employees	Number of employees
level_group	Highest qualification level - Filter by highest qualification level
median_earnings	Median annual earnings
pct_qual	Proportion of employees by qualification
qual_rank	Ranking of qualifications in total by employee numbers - Filter by overall qualification ranking within each sector and region group
qual_title	Title of highest qualification
sector	Industry sector - Filter by industry sector
subject	Subject of highest qualification - Filter by subject of highest qualification
subsector	Industry sub-sector - Filter by industry sub-sector

Footnotes

1. Data are restricted to employees born between September 1988 and August 1993. These employees turned age 25-30 in the 2018-19 tax year.
2. Excludes qualifications at below level 2 and qualifications achieved prior to post-16 education (e.g. GCSEs).

Top ten qualifications by region and industry sector ordered by employee numbers

• Filename: medearningsandvolumesbytoptenqualifications.csv
• Geographic levels: National; Regional
• Time period: 2018-19
• Content:

  Data showing the top 10 qualifications held by employees in each region, sector and subsector group. The qualifications are ordered by the number of employees who hold them and are based on the highest qualification held by employees.

  This file only includes qualifications at level 2 or higher that were achieved in post-16 education. Qualifications achieved at school, such as GCSEs, are excluded. It is designed to work with the table creator tool.

Variable names and descriptions

Variable names and descriptions for this file are provided below:

Variable name	Variable description
employees	Number of employees
level_group	Level - Filter by level of highest qualification
median_earnings	Median annual earnings
pct_qual	Proportion of employees by qualification
qual_title	Title of highest qualification - Filter by level and qualification title
sector	Industry sector - Filter by industry sector
subject	Subject - Filter by subject of highest qualification
subsector	Industry sub-sector - Filter by industry sub-sector

Footnotes

1. Restricted to the top ten qualifications ordered by employee numbers.
2. Data are restricted to employees born between September 1988 and August 1993. These employees turned age 25-30 in the 2018-19 tax year.
3. Excludes qualifications at below level 2 and qualifications achieved prior to post-16 education (e.g. GCSEs).

Top ten qualifications by region and industry sector ordered by median earnings

• Filename: medearningsandvolumesbytoptenqualifications2.csv
• Geographic levels: National; Regional
• Time period: 2018-19
• Content:

  Data showing the top 10 qualifications with the highest median earnings held by employees in each region, sector and subsector group. The qualifications represent the highest held by employees.

  This table only includes qualifications at level 2 or higher that were achieved in post-16 education. Qualifications achieved at school, such as GCSEs, are excluded. It is designed to work with the table creator tool.

Variable names and descriptions

Variable names and descriptions for this file are provided below:

Variable name	Variable description
employees	Number of employees
level_group	Level - Filter by level of highest qualification
median_earnings	Median annual earnings
pct_qual	Proportion of employees by qualification
qual_title	Title of highest qualification - Filter by level and qualification title
sector	Industry sector - Filter by industry sector
subject	Subject - Filter by subject of highest qualification
subsector	Industry sub-sector - Filter by industry sub-sector

Footnotes

1. Data are restricted to employees born between September 1988 and August 1993. These employees turned age 25-30 in the 2018-19 tax year.
2. Includes qualifications held by 100 or more employees.
3. Excludes qualifications at below level 2 and qualifications achieved prior to post-16 education (e.g. GCSEs).
4. Restricted to the top ten qualifications ordered by median earnings.