COWZ-EW

Published by: University of Southampton, developed in collaboration with the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

Description: The Classification of Workplace Zones for England and Wales (COWZ-EW) is a geodemographic classification of the characteristics of Workplace Zones (WZs), based on data from the 2011 Census of England and Wales. It categorises WZs based on their similarity in terms of a range of census variables.

48 Census variables were selected for their ability to differentiate different types of workers and workplaces, and a k-means clustering technique was used to generate 7 Supergroups and subdivide each of these into a varying number of Groups, giving 29 Groups in total. More details on the methodology can be found in the User Guide (available from the Download link above).

Status: This was initially an interim product (for England and Wales) released in response to strong user interest whilst a full UK-wide classification was under development. COWZ-UK has since been released by ONS and University of Southampton and is available here, but COWZ-EW is still available as an England and Wales specific classification. Feedback from users is, as ever, encouraged.

Licence: The dataset is made available under the Open Government Licence v3.0. You may re-use this information free of charge, in any format or medium under the terms of the licence.

Data citation: Cockings S, Martin D, Harfoot A (2015) A Classification of Workplace Zones for England and Wales (COWZ-EW), University of Southampton.

To access COWZ-EZ datasets and documentation, use the Download link from the top of the page

Adapted from data from the Office for National Statistics licensed under the Open Government Licence v.3.0. 2011 Census Workplace Zone boundaries, 2011 Census data tables © Crown copyright and database right 2015