Dataset: People on Universal Credit
Description
Universal Credit can be claimed by people who are either in or out of employment or self-employment.
An individual on Universal Credit at the count date will be recorded as:
In employment (PAYE) only if they have employment earnings within the Universal Credit assessment period that spans the count date.
In self-employment only if they are required to report earnings from self-employed activity to the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).
In both employment (PAYE) and self-employment if both conditions apply.
They may not be actively engaged in employment or self-employment precisely on the count date.
Employment for this measure is defined as being employed as an employee and being paid through PAYE.
Self-employment for this measure is defined as someone who must report their earnings from self-employed activity to DWP.
Classification
The employment indicator for claimants can take the following values:
Not in employment (PAYE) or self-employment
In employment (PAYE)
In self-employment
In employment (PAYE) and self-employment
Not available
Total number of categories: 5
Quality Statement
Information on the employment status of people on Universal Credit is not available prior to November 2013 for those in employment and January 2016 for those in self-employment due to the limitations of the data recorded at the time and issues with data linkage.
Employment status of a claimant on the count date is derived from His Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC) Real Time Information (RTI) system at the count date. Self-employment status is based on whether someone on whether someone is required to report earnings from self-employed work to the DWP. This information comes from complete scans of Universal Credit data systems The employment and self-employment indicators for the latest month are subject to revision in future releases.
A claimant's employment/self-employment status and conditionality regime may not always match due to differences in how the data is recorded. Therefore, care should be taken when interpreting any tables created by cross-tabulating these variables.
Conditionality Regime is based on an individual's circumstances on the count date.
It is possible for an individual to be 'In Work' using one measure and 'Not in Work' using the other as shown in the example below.
