Commuting patterns in the North East

Commuting between local authorities in the North East

The data on this page comes from 2021 census which was taken as the Covid-19 pandemic was still exerting a strong influence on working in the North East. A much higher proportion of workers were working from home than normal, which therefore meant that commuting patterns in the region were different to what they would be otherwise. 

The data is therefore presented in two fashions, first with the data including home workers and second with home workers excluded. 

In both cases the data shows that a significant proportion of workers in the North East commute across local authority boundaries. This is particularly true of workers living in the Tyneside local authorities, which had higher proportion of workers both leaving the local authority and commuting into the local authority for work.

Commuting by personal characteristics

Not all workers in the North East are equally likely to commute between local authorities. In particular, once home workers have been excluded, workers in professional occupations are more likely to cross a local authority boundary for work.

Just over half of those classed as in social grades A and B who did not work from home commuted to another local authority for work in 2021, compared to less than a third of those in semi-skilled and manual occupations.

It is also the case that males are more likely to work across local authority boundaries than females, probably because they are more likely to be working in professional occupations.

Finally older workers are slightly less likely to work across local authority boundaries than younger workers, though the differences are not as large as those for other demographic characteristics.