When the census or a survey asks what you do, your answer is coded into the Standard Occupational Classification. It groups jobs by the skills they need, and it shapes the numbers behind careers advice and policy.
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412 unit groups
Tasks make the job
Skills set the group
Nine broad families
One code for every kind of work
THE SHORT ANSWER
Jobs are sorted by skill.
The UK has used one occupational classification since 1990. SOC 2020 is its third revision.
THE JOB
A set of tasks
The classification starts from the job, defined as a set of tasks or duties carried out by one person. Jobs with similar tasks and skills end up in the same group.
General information only, not legal advice. For advice on your own situation, speak to a qualified lawyer or a free advice service.
A QUICK GROUP CHECK
How much training does a group expect?
Pick a major group to see the general nature of training it involves. The bar shows the SOC skill level: low for levels 1 and 2, mid for level 3, high for level 4.
Skill levels are approximated by the time needed to become fully competent in a job, through qualifications, work-based training or experience.
TWO NUMBERS WORTH KNOWING
Thousands of titles, one structure.
One figure on how many job titles the index holds, one on the largest group in Census 2021.
30,110
Job titles in the SOC 2020 index
At publication the SOC 2020 coding index held 30,110 entries, each pointing to one of 412 unit groups. New titles are added and redundant ones removed as work changes.
CODING INDEX · ONS
20.2%
Workers in professional occupations
Professional occupations were the largest broad group in England and Wales: 5.6 million people. Associate professional and technical occupations made up 13.2%, and managers, directors and senior officials 12.8%.
CENSUS 2021 · ONS
Census 2021 counted 27.8 million usual residents aged 16 and over in employment in England and Wales in the week before Census Day, 21 March 2021.
FOUR TIPS FOR ANY FORM
Help the coder get it right.
Coders work from what you write. A clear answer puts your job in the right group, and the statistics built on it are more accurate.
Write your full job title
Census 2021 asked for full job titles. When the key word alone is too vague, the coding index falls back on a default code, so detail helps.
Say what you actually do
SOC sorts by tasks and skills, sometimes even the materials and tools used. A line on your main tasks helps place an unusual title.
Name your employer’s main activity
That answer is coded separately, to an industry, using the Standard Industrial Classification. Occupation is what you do; industry is what your employer does.
Try a coding tool
The University of Warwick’s CASCOT tool, linked from the ONS SOC page, suggests a code and colours it green for higher certainty or red for lower.
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JOB AND INDUSTRY
Two questions, two classifications.
AI-generated image, not a photograph of a real person or place.
The census codes your job title into an occupation and your employer’s main activity into an industry. In 2021 the largest industry in England and Wales was wholesale, retail and motor trade, with 15.0% of workers, just ahead of human health and social work at 14.7%.
Among the 104 minor occupation groups, the largest were caring personal services (5.0%, 1.4 million), sales assistants and retail cashiers (4.7%, 1.3 million), functional managers and directors, teaching professionals and road transport drivers.
Questions
Questions people ask
What is the Standard Occupational Classification?
It is the UK’s standard way of grouping jobs, first introduced in 1990 and maintained by the Office for National Statistics. The ONS revises it on a 10-year cycle, and SOC 2020 is the third revision.
What is the difference between a job and an occupation?
In SOC a job is a set of tasks or duties carried out by one person. Jobs are grouped into occupations according to skill level, meaning the time needed to become competent, and skill specialisation, meaning the field of knowledge.
How does a job title find its code?
Through the coding index, which lists job titles in reverse word order so that titles sharing a key word sit together. A school crossing patrol warden, for example, is found under “warden”.
Who uses the classification?
The ONS says SOC is used for career information for people entering the labour market, job matching by employment agencies and the development of government labour market policies.
Does it match other countries?
SOC aims to align as far as possible with the International Standard Classification of Occupations 2008, and the SOC 2020 coding index adds ISCO-08 codes to its entries.
