Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.The Skills Survey is a series of nationally representative sample surveys of individuals in employment aged 20-60 years old (since 2006, the surveys have additionally sampled those aged 61-65). The surveys aim to investigate the employed workforce in Great Britain. Although they were not originally planned as part of a series and had different funding sources and objectives, continuity in questionnaire design has meant the surveys now provide a unique, national representative picture of change in British workplaces as reported by individual job holders. This allows analysts to examine how various aspects of job quality and skill levels have changed over 30 years.The first surveys in the series were carried out in 1986 and 1992. These surveys also form part of this integrated data series, and are known as the Social Change and Economic Life Initiative (SCELI) and Employment in Britain (EIB) studies respectively.The 1997 survey was the first to collect primarily data on skills using the job requirements approach. This focused on collecting data on objective indicators of job skill as reported by respondents. The 2001 survey assessed how much had changed between the two surveys and a third survey in 2006 enhanced the time series data, while providing a resource for analysing skill and job requirements in the British economy at that time. The 2012 survey aimed to again add to the time series data and, coinciding as it did with a period of economic recession, to provide insight into whether workers in Britain felt under additional pressure/demand from employers as a result of redundancies and cut backs. In addition, a series dataset, covering 1986, 1992, 1997, 2001, 2006 and 2012 is also available . A follow-up to the 2012 survey was conducted in 2014, revisiting respondents who had agreed to be interviewed again. The 2017 survey was the seventh in the series, designed to examine to what extent pressures had continued as a result of austerity and economic uncertainties triggered, for example, by Brexit as well as examining additional issues such as productivity, fairness at work and the retirement intentions of older workers.Each survey comprises a large number of respondents: 4,047 in the 1986 survey; 3,855 in 1992; 2,467 in 1997; 4,470 in 2001; 7,787 in 2006; 3,200 in 2012; and 3,306 in 2017.

The project to carry out the 2017 survey was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), Cardiff University and the Department for Education with funding from the Welsh Government to boost the sample in Wales (ES/P005292/1). The four specific objectives for SES2017, stemming from the overarching aim (to provide data on the skills and employment experiences of working life in Britain in 2017) were as follows: To chart the level and distribution of, and changes to, some of the key drivers of productivity such as work organisation, job-related well-being, the skills requirements of jobs, and the incidence, volume and quality of training and learning.To describe and analyse the level and distribution of key aspects of job quality in 2017 – such as employee involvement, work intensity, insecurity and well-being at work – and make comparisons with earlier data points in the series.To use the data to develop distinctive, original and substantive contributions to scholarship surrounding job quality and job skill, and the connections these aspects of work have with productivity and innovation.To make the data available and provide the necessary documentary material to allow further analyses by academic and policy-based researchers in the field of skills and job quality.Further information may be found on the Cardiff University Skills and Employment Survey 2017 and How Good is My Job websites.A Special Licence Access version of the SES2017 is available under SN 8580, subject to more restrictive access conditions. It contains more detailed geographical information, covering Travel To Work Areas (TTWA). Users are advised to download this version, SN 8581, to see if it is suitable for their requirements before making an application for the Special Licence version.

Main Topics:

Multi-stage stratified random sample

Face-to-face interview