Employment characteristics

Self-employment

The incidence of self-employment has fallen over the past two years – particularly amongst IT specialists where a fall of five percentage points has occurred over the 2019-23 period (from 11% to 6%) and in 2023 there were approximately 126,000 IT specialists in total working on a self-employed basis in the UK.

For both IT specialists and other workers, the incidence of self-employment is found to be higher amongst individuals from older age groups and in 2023 older IT specialists were more than twice as likely to be self-employed as their younger counterparts (11% vs 5% respectively for those aged 50+ and 16-49).

Age and the incidence of self-employment (2023)

Source: Analysis of ONS Quarterly Labour Force Survey by BCS

Employees and size of workplace

IT specialists working as employees are, perhaps understandably, more likely than others to be employed within larger workplaces (i.e. as micro/small sites are less likely to have an in-house function) and whilst 31% of UK employees as a whole were working in larger sites during 2023 (those with 250 or more staff), a figure of 42% was recorded for IT specialist employees.

This observation was also true for older IT specialists in 2023 – 44% of whom were working in larger workplaces during 2023.

Age and size of workplace (2023)

Source: Analysis of ONS Quarterly Labour Force Survey by BCS

As illustrated in the chart above, IT specialists aged 50+ were more likely than others to be working in micro business sites with comparison figure in this case of 22% and 19% respectively during 2023 (for employees aged 50+/under 50).

Industry of employment

Over four in ten IT specialists (43%) aged 50+ were working in IT businesses in 2023 as were those aged 16-49 (also 43%). After IT, the next largest employment sector for IT specialists aged 50+ was banking/finance (24%) followed by the public sector (14%) and this was also true for IT specialists as a whole.

Looking in more detail at the levels of representation for older IT specialists in different industries, it can be seen that representation was highest in manufacturing and public services (25% in each case) and lowest for distribution/ hotels/ restaurants and ‘other services’ businesses (16% and 17% respectively).

Age by occupation and industry (2023)

Source: Analysis of ONS Quarterly Labour Force Survey by BCS
* Five-year average