The West of England Combined Authority has the fifth largest population of the nine English Combined Authorities at 954,300 (ONS, 2022). It brings together three local authorities: South Gloucestershire, Bath and North East Somerset and the City of Bristol.

It has a higher employment rate (79.4%) and a lower unemployment rate (2.7%) than the English average (3.7%) [ONS, 2023]. Economic inactivity is lower in the West of England Combined Authority (18.4%) than the rest of England (21.4%) [ONS, 2023]. Workers in the region earn a weekly wage of £640, which is £10 above the English average wage (Centre for Cities, 2023).

One in five (20.4%) workers in the West of England Combined Authority are in severely insecure work, which is slightly higher than the national average of 19.8%. It has the third highest level of severely insecure work out of the nine English Combined Authorities.

The West of England Combined Authority has higher than average incidences of second jobs, part-time workers, and workers with less two years’ service.

Across the West of England, there is significant variation in the incidence of severely insecure work amongst the four local authorities. South Gloucestershire is the hotspot in the city region with 23.9% of its workers in severely insecure work. The City of Bristol is two percentage points below the national average for workers in severely insecure work.

Source: Work Foundation calculations of the Office for National Statistics Labour Force Survey; 2021- 2022.

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