Cheltenham Open Data Adds a Full Employment Rate History
Cheltenham's economic activity, employment and unemployment rates year by year since 2004, sourced from the ONS's Nomis service.
Cheltenham Open Data has added a full employment rate history page, a companion to the current figures on the All About Cheltenham page.
It’s the year-by-year data behind that headline employment rate — economic activity, employment and unemployment rates for Cheltenham residents aged 16-64, back to 2004, as a chart and a table, sourced from the same ONS Nomis service.
The series covers 22 years, from 2004 to 2025.
FAQs
How Far Back Does the Data Go?
- To 2004 — 22 years of history in total, as far back as this particular Nomis dataset covers for Cheltenham.
Why Does the Rate Jump Around so Much Year to Year?
- These rates come from a sample survey rather than a full count. For a town the size of Cheltenham, year-to-year swings of several percentage points are normal statistical noise, not necessarily a real change in the local economy — the overall trend matters more than any single year.
Why Is the Unemployment Rate Missing for Some Years?
- The ONS suppresses the unemployment rate for a given year when the underlying sample is too small to be statistically reliable at local authority level. This happens intermittently throughout the whole series and isn’t specific to Cheltenham.
How Does This Relate to the All About Cheltenham Page?
- That page shows the current headline rates; this one shows how they got there, with the full year-by-year history and a chart.
Where Does the Data Come From?
- Nomis, the ONS’s official service for labour market data, refreshed monthly.