Economists at ONS
ONS has a central role in analysing and reporting on the UK's changing economy. We have always had a duty to provide impartial, comprehensive and high quality statistics on all aspects of economic and social life in the UK; now, we are increasingly finding a need for economists to help us interpret the latest trends, to develop better measures and to help us improve our current outputs.
As an economist at ONS you will get a chance to apply economic theory to a range of practical issues and work closely with professionals with a strong statistical and policy research background and analysts in other government departments (particularly HM Treasury, Department of Trade and Industry and Department for Work and Pensions), the Bank of England, Eurostat and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. You will also gain a good understanding of UK statistics and how these can be applied to policy analysis and empirical economics in a rigorous and meaningful way. As many of our economists have found, such understanding can be very useful for career progression.
ONS economists make a major contribution across a range of areas and a range of disciplines. We provide colleagues with up–to–the–minute analysis of the latest trends in the economy to help ensure the high quality of the basic economic data (such as the UK National Accounts) that feeds directly into macroeconomic policy making. ONS economists are also strongly involved in pioneering work looking at the measurement of government activity, including measuring the productivity of the main public services.
The work of ONS economists is not limited to macroeconomic issues. We also have to look within the aggregate numbers. For example, we are currently working to improve understanding of productivity and structural change in the economy and the impacts of technology and globalisation. We are reporting on the fundamentals of economic growth, looking at why firms grow and what factors determine their productivity, using extensive cross–sectional and panel data sets. In this work we are able to work with leading academics who have considerable interest in the firm level microdata held by ONS.
ONS economists are also analysing the labour market and assessing changes in its underlying structure. Labour statistics are becoming increasingly important in improving understanding of the 'knowledge economy'. For example, our recent work on the measurement of software in the UK economy is built up from labour market surveys.
