Working Paper 51: Employment projections by sector and borough

This Working Paper presents new and extended (to 2036) trend-based forecasts for employment in London, disaggregated by sector using the new Standard Industrial Classification (SIC 2007) and by borough and based on Workforce Jobs statistics.

The medium term forecast for employment hardly changes from that produced in 2009: we now see 5.393 million employees in 2031 (previously 5.452 million). The explanation is our use of a slightly stronger productivity trend (1.9 per cent annually versus 1.8 per cent previously).

‘Professional, real estate, scientific and technical activities’ is set to be the fastest growing sector. The other relatively fast growing sectors are ‘Information and communication’ and ‘Administrative and support services’ followed by ‘Transport and storage’.

Turning to the boroughs, we see smaller rises in employee numbers than in employment in 2009 in the City and in Westminster (Note that unlike in 2009, now we are not forecasting self-employment in the boroughs). However in some other boroughs we see bigger rises (for employees) than previously (for total employment), notably Southwark and Tower Hamlets.