In an increasingly complex and mobile society there is a need for population statistics to be produced more flexibly to accommodate a range of analyses; in addition to the usual residence base (where people usually live), one alternative output base is workday population (where people usually work, while those not working are recorded at their usual address). This story analyses data for the workday population by age, sex and geographical breakdown.

Key points

• The largest gains from usually resident to workday populations were for City of London (56 fold increase) and Westminster (almost three fold increase).
• Numerical increases in excess of 100,000 for workday population compared to usually resident population were seen in five local authorities (LAs): Westminster, City of London, Camden, Tower Hamlets and Manchester.
• Eight of the twenty LAs experiencing the largest percentage decrease in workday population compared to their usually resident population were London boroughs on the periphery of the capital’s commercial centre containing residential zones for commuters.
• Six inner London boroughs had workday population densities that exceeded the highest level of usually resident population density for LAs in England and Wales (111 persons per hectare in Islington). These were City of London, Westminster, Tower Hamlets, Camden, Islington and Kensington and Chelsea.
• Sex ratios of workday populations can vary greatly compared to those of usually resident populations. The largest difference in 2011 was for North Warwickshire where the workday sex ratio was 133 males per 100 females, compared to 99 males per 100 females for its usually resident population. This reflects the area’s automotive and mining industries.
• Within London there were large variations in age structure between workday and usually resident populations: age profiles were younger for workday populations in boroughs experiencing workday population gains, and older in those experiencing workday population losses.
• Outside London there was less variation between the age profiles of workday and usually resident populations; workday population gains were more evenly spread across all working ages.