Update on the future of the survey

On 19 February, ONS confirmed next steps in streamlining our portfolio. Reflecting our commitment to put quality over quantity, this adds detail to our announcement last November to reduce our statistical outputs by 10 per cent in 2026 and devote resources to our essential improvement work.

In response to user feedback, we will continue to run the Annual Population Survey (APS) which reflects ONS outputs at a local and regional level. However, this will be at a lower level of resourcing, enabling us to bolster the Living Costs and Food Survey - a key contributor to GDP, prices and for measuring the distribution of household disposable income.

We will work with users such as yourselves on the implications of this for your data needs, as there will be gradual impacts from September 2026. Meanwhile we will continue to increase survey quality where we can. Longer term we will seek to address user needs currently met via the APS through our Transformed Labour Force Survey.