Buckinghamshire’s claimant count, September 2018

Buckinghamshire’s claimant count fell by 55 in September to stand at 3,035, or 0.9 per cent of working age residents.

Buckinghamshire has the 3rd lowest claimant count rate among the 27 county council areas, ranking 2nd lowest among the 38 Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs).  Over the last year Buckinghamshire’s claimant count has risen by 4.7 per cent (135 claimants), well below the rises of 17.9 and 17.0 per cent recorded across the south east region and Great Britain, to rank 2nd lowest among LEPs.

Table 1: Claimant Count, September 2018

Source: DWP, 2018

The claimant count rate is below 1.0 per cent in 71 of Buckinghamshire’s 98 wards, with four wards having rates above the national level.  These four wards, Micklefield; Oakridge and Castlefield; and Booker and Cressex in High Wycombe and Ridgeway in Chesham now account for 12.7 per cent of all claimants in Buckinghamshire.  The full results are presented in the map at the end of this bulletin.

There were 6,013 advertised job openings in Buckinghamshire in September, the most since April, 3.7 per cent more (217 openings) than in August but 13.6 per cent (740) fewer than in September 2017.  In the year to the end of September there were 67,488 job vacancies posted in Buckinghamshire, 2.4 per cent (1,684 openings) fewer than in the previous year, with professional and technical occupations seeing the largest fall in openings, down 1,569 or 4.9 per cent.  Managerial, professional and technical occupations now account for 59.1 per cent of all openings, down from 60.2 per cent in the previous year.  The data are presented in chart 6 below.  There were 2.0 openings per claimant in Buckinghamshire in September compared to 0.8 across Great Britain.

The roles most commonly advertised in Buckinghamshire in the year to the end of September were other sales occupations (2,862 openings) ahead of programmers and software development professionals (2,523); other administrative occupations (2,039); other customer service occupations (1,851); nurses (1,834); and other managers and proprietors in services (1,679).

Over the last year the baseline skills most sought by recruiters in Buckinghamshire have been communication skills and organisational skills, sought in 21.8 and 9.5 per cent of openings respectively).

Chart 1: Buckinghamshire’s claimant count over time, to September 2018

Source: DWP, 2018

Table 2: Claimant count by age group, September 2018

 Source: DWP, 2018

Chart 2: Aylesbury Vale’s claimant count over time, to September 2018

Source: DWP, 2018

Chart 3: Chiltern’s claimant count over time, to September 2018

Source: DWP, 2018

Chart 4: South Bucks’ claimant count over time, to September 2018

Source: DWP, 2018

Chart 5: Wycombe’s claimant count over time, to September 2018

Source: DWP, 2018

Table 3: Claimant count by sought occupation (JSA only), September 2018

Source: DWP, 2018

Chart 6: Changes in vacancy posting in Buckinghamshire by occupation, 2017-18

Source: Labour Insight, 2018