Flow data home

Census Support: Flow Data

Flow Data is part of UK Data Service Census Support, providing data and user support for anyone interested in using flow data from the Census.

Census flow data (also referred to as interaction data) relate to the movement of people between places. These can be regular short distance moves such as the daily commute to work, or less frequent - and sometimes longer distance - moves such as migration to a new home or an extended stay in a second address.

Flow data differ from other Census data in that they link two locations - an origin and a destination. With two geographies, flow datasets can be much larger than other Census data products.

News

News 2021 Census flow data released 2023-11-02

We are pleased to announce that the 2021 Census public and safeguarded flow data for England and Wales are now accessible through the WICID bulk downloads page.

In total, there are 66 public tables and 37 safeguarded tables, which include datasets at various geographical levels.

We are working hard on introducing new, modern tools for the delivery and analysis of census flow data with advanced subsetting capabilities. Updates regarding these new tools will be posted here and shared through the official UK Data Service channels.

Getting the data

There are three principal ways of getting to the data. In order to use most of the data sets, it is necessary to be registered.

WICID WICID - the flexible query builder
WICID WICID Downloads - flow data tables ready to be downloaded
WICID WICID Flow Summaries - a quick summary of the most significant flows associated with a chosen area

New data for un-registered users

About the data

Currently migration and commuting data from the 1981, 1991, 2001 and 2011 Censuses are available through WICID. Additional non-census datasets are also available from the system.