The FSCA, the leading trade association for professional employment services (umbrella, accountancy, payroll), have revealed the latest ONS statistics and their analysis of them, with some interesting self-employment statistics in certain industries.

In the year to September 2016, the number of self-employed jobs in the Public Administration and Defence industry increased by over 27% (14K). There was also an increase of 10K self-employed jobs in the Human Health Industry, which equated to a 6% increase.

The FCSA also revealed the Top 25 industrial classifications (with PSC potential) by number of self-employed jobs. Construction-related activities were prominent, with specialist construction activities (485K), construction of buildings (293K), services building & landscape activities (240K) all featuring in the top 10. Education was also very popular at 293K self-employed jobs.

Although the Education industry is one of the most popular industries for number of self-employed jobs, only 9.9% of all education jobs are self-employed and the overall amount of Education and Public Admin & Defence jobs actually fell across the year. The Creative, Arts and Entertainment industries – which was also in the top 10 at 157K self-employed jobs – has a percentage of 61% total jobs being self-employed. The Crop & Animal production industries had 167K self-employed jobs, and 47% of overall jobs in this industry are self-employed.

There were also industry areas where self-employment jobs fell, including Scientific R&D which fell by 5805 (108%), and Legal & Accounting Activities which fell by 19,859 (17%).

In terms of median wage, all categories within the Engineering sector received a pay boost in the year to April 2016, with the exception of mechanical engineering. All IT & Telecoms professionals, apart from IT project & Programme managers, received a pay boost also. Compared to 2015, Programmers and Software Developers earnt a 7.1% increase, and compared to 2010 have had a wage increase of 20.8%. Within the construction industry however, 5 out of the 21 categories experienced a year-on-year decrease in wage, with Construction Project Managers & Related Professionals earning 2.8% less in 2016 than they did in 2010.

With regards to Brexit, the statistics also revealed that there may be some areas and industries that might experience challenges if Brexit negotiations unsettle the EU27 nationals workforce. Industries that had at least 10% dependency on EU27 nationals included the Manufacturing, IT & Comms, Transport & Storage, Accommodation & Food Services, and Admin & Support Services. There is no occupation that has less than a 4% dependency – there was a 7.6% dependency amongst vital Skilled Trades Occupations, 12.8% dependency amongst Process, Plant & Machine Operatives, and 14.3% dependency amongst Elementary Occupations.

It is certainly interesting to see the different trends for the self-employed amongst the different industries. ICS are a FCSA Associate and provide SME accountancy, as well as accountancy to the self-employed across a variety of industries. We work in partnership with recruitment agencies to ensure that the contractors they refer are looked after, and are paid in a quick, compliant way. You can find out more about how we support recruitment agencies by clicking here.