Key workers in the UK
Using UK Labour Force Survey data, we estimate that almost 1 in 3 workers in the UK are classified as key workers, corresponding to 9.3 million workers in total. The largest category of key workers is in health and social care (3 million), followed by education and childcare (2 million) and food and other necessity goods (1.2 million).
The majority of public sector employees are classified as key workers, while this is true for only 1 in 5 private sector workers.
Key workers are under-represented amongst both the bottom 20% and top 20% of wage earners, and they tend to occupy the central portion of the wage distribution. That said, there are substantial differences between sectors, with health and social care workers much more likely to occupy the bottom 20% and 40% of the wage distribution.