Statistics Wales quarterly update: December 2025

This is the latest in a series of quarterly updates, for users of Welsh statistics, on our latest developments, consultations, and plans.

A full list of our most recent publications can be found on our upcoming calendar.

We have launched a consultation on a range of statistical outputs as part of a wider transformation programme. This work will help us build more efficient and sustainable ways of working, while ensuring our statistics remain relevant, accessible, and meet user needs.

The proposals cover the following themes:

• Transport
• Economy, trade, labour market and skills
• Health and care
• Housing
• Education
• Social justice (including deliberate or grassland fires) 

Why your input matters

Your feedback will help shape decisions on what we publish and how we present information. We want to know what works well for you, what could be improved, and any gaps you see.

How to respond

Please read the consultation document and share your views by 11 February 2026. We will review all feedback and publish a summary of responses, explaining how your input influenced decisions.

The new StatsWales open data service is now live and ready for you to explore.

This is a significant step forward in how we provide access to official statistics for Wales. The new service offers a more modern, flexible, and user-friendly way to find, use, and share Welsh data. Whether you are a regular StatsWales user or just starting out, we hope you will find the new platform easier to navigate and more responsive to your needs.

The old StatsWales service will remain available until the end of February 2026. However, all new and updated datasets will only be published on the new service. We are gradually migrating existing datasets across over the coming months. If you rely on a particular dataset, you will still be able to access it on the old site for now but keep an eye out for updates as we move things over.

We will be using the Welsh Government’s Digital and Data blog to provide regular updates on plans and progress, so subscribe to the blog to keep up-to-date. 

Wellbeing of Wales 2025 was published in early October, providing a state-of-the-nation assessment of progress towards the seven well-being goals. The report found that the pace of change in our national well-being indicators remains gradual, with limited movement from year to year.

We have taken steps this year to make the Wellbeing of Wales report more concise, reflecting feedback from readers and analytics data on how the report is used. Alongside this, there are areas where we have made additions and improvements, such as reporting on the justice national indicator for the first time.

Economy

The role of the Welsh Economic Statistics User Group is to engage with and advise Welsh Government analysts on strategic priorities and the work plan for economic statistics in Wales. The group last met 16 October 2025, and items included a presentation from the Office for National Statistics on their Economic Statistics Plan, Survey Improvement Plan, and the Transformed Labour Force Survey and from Welsh Government on the Trade Survey for Wales. Items also included presentations on the Wellbeing of Wales report, Input-Output Tables multipliers, and a demonstration of StatsWales3. The Chief Economist from Welsh Government also gave an overview of the Wales Economic and Fiscal report. Past agenda items and presentations, as well as the terms of reference can be found online. The next meeting will be held on 12 March 2026. We are eager to extend membership of this group to a wider audience. If you would be interested in joining this group, which meets twice a year (either hybrid or online), please contact KASevents@gov.wales. 

In October, we published our Short-term output indicators: April to June 2025 which shows the short term movements in the output of industries in the production, construction and market services sectors. In November, we published our Business demography: 2024 and in December we published our Research and development business enterprise expenditure: 2024.

If you would like to get in touch, please contact economic.stats@gov.wales. 

Labour market

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) have highlighted that the challenges with maintaining response rates for the Labour Force Survey (LFS) continue to affect data quality. As a result LFS-based labour market statistics are labelled as official statistics in development (OSR) until further review and we continue to recommend caution when interpreting this data. 

We continue to publish our monthly labour market overview release, which brings together a range of different labour market sources. We recommend using the LFS data alongside the trends in these other measures of the labour market to gain a clearer picture of the impact different events have on the Welsh labour market.

ONS are introducing a new Transformed Labour Force Survey (TLFS) which they plan to become the main data source for information on the labour market in the UK and Wales in the future. ONS published an update in July 2025 on their program of work to improve the quality of labour market statistics, including an update on their developments to TLFS and the actions they are continuing to improve the quality of existing LFS based statistics The LFS will continue while further development of the TLFS takes place. 

In addition to the monthly labour market overview, we published the annual update to Regional gross disposable household income for 2023 in September which provides information on the amount of money that individuals in the household sector have available for spending or saving. We also published Jobs Growth Wales+ statistics for April to June 2025 which presents information on young people enrolled on the Jobs Growth Wales+ programme.

October was a busy month with a number of publications as across different areas. We published our Annual Population Survey (APS) labour market statistics data for July 2024 to June 2025 which includes data for UK countries and regions and also for local areas. Annual statistics from the APS on the participation of young people in education and the labour market for July 2024 to June 2025 were also released.

Latest data from the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) was also published in October, providing information on average hourly, weekly and annual earnings as well as the gender pay gap for 2025. 

At the beginning of November we updated our Business Register and Employment Survey release for 2024, presenting employee and employment estimates. BRES employment estimates are usually published at the UK level, however, the 2024 provisional BRES employment estimates cover Great Britain only as estimates for 2024 are not yet available for Northern Ireland. The ONS plan to update the 2024 statistical release with UK estimates when Northern Ireland estimates become available. We also published our Participation of young people in education and the labour market: 2023 and 2024 (provisional) release in November which provides summary information on the learning activities and labour market status of young people aged 16 to 24 in Wales and is the definitive source for estimates of the proportion of young people who are not in education, employment or training (NEET) in Wales. 

If you would like to get in touch, please contact labourmarket.stats@gov.wales.

Trade Survey for Wales

The analysis of Trade Survey for Wales 2022 is available online. There has been a gap in data collection due to budgetary pressures, but a contract has recently been awarded to conduct cognitive testing, piloting, and mainstage survey. This work will commence November 2025 and conclude by March 2027. 

For further information contact: stats.trade@gov.wales.

Welsh International Goods Trade

Headline results from HMRC Regional Trade Statistics for Wales’s international goods trade for year ending June 2025 were published 11 September 2025, with the next quarter’s data due to be published on 18 December 2025. 

Alongside the above statistics, the interactive trade dashboard will be kept updated to the latest quarter’s data. 

For further information contact: stats.trade@gov.wales.

Supply and Use Tables and Input Output Tables

Supply and use tables and input-output tables for 2019 were published as official statistics in development on 11 March 2025. Work is currently underway to update the tables using a 2022 base year. 

On 15 October 2025, we published estimates of effects and multipliers (StatsWales) for economic output, Gross Value Added (GVA) and employment to assist users in applying the 2019 tables in analysis. A separate statistical article explains when and how to use multipliers derived using the input-output tables appropriately in analysis. 

In addition, the Welsh Government’s Data Science Unit has developed an interactive tool to support input-output modelling and help users visualise how changes to final demand might affect output across the economy. Those interested in reviewing or installing the tool can do so via GitHub. 

If you are interested in using these tables for your own research and would like advice on their application, please get in touch.

For further information contact: InputOutputTables@gov.wales 

Schools

Attendance data

We continue to publish fortnightly data on pupils’ attendance in maintained schools throughout the Autumn term with the first publication on 23 September. The release includes further detail on long term trends in education before and after the Covid-19 pandemic.

We also published data from the statutory annual attendance data collections. The release Attendance and absence from schools was published on 30 September with data on attendance and absence from secondary schools for the period September 2024 to July 2025.

Data from the statutory annual attendance data collection for primary schools will be published on 30 November, and a release combining statutory data for both primary and secondary scho0ols will be published in December. Both these outputs will be available at the link above.

Other statistical releases

The following statistical releases have also been published in the Autumn:

Pupils educated other than at school on 26 August covering the period September 2024 to August 2025.

Provisional Examination results on 2 October, covering the period September 2024 to August 2024, with final examination result due to be published on 4 December.

Permanent and fixed-term exclusions from schools on 11 November covering the period September 2023 to August 2024.

Outcomes at the end of Key Stage

Due to the rollout of the new Curriculum for Wales there are no longer any Key Stages within the curriculum and as such no assessment data. Our historical series of data on assessments at the end of each Key Stage has come to an end and will no longer be updated or added to.

If you have any questions or would like to provide feedback, you can contact us on school.stats@gov.wales.

Higher education and student finance

We’ve continued to publish our monthly statistics on Student support applications for higher education and Education Maintenance Allowances (EMA) awarded in Wales.

In order to provide feedback, or for any further information, please contact highereducationandstudentfinance.stats@gov.wales.

Affordable housing provision

We recently published (13 November) statistics on affordable housing delivered in the 2024-25 financial year. The release includes progress towards the Welsh Government’s commitment to deliver 20,000 new low carbon homes for rent within the social sector during this government term.

This year we added a small amount of management information to the release, to improve the timeliness of the reporting, and also published a separate data table showing expected delivery post March 2025. The Chief Statistician’s blog, published alongside the release, explains more about the definitions and how the data can and can’t be used (Digital and Data Blog).

In May 2025, the Cabinet Secretary for Housing and Local Government accepted a recommendation from the Affordable Housing Taskforce that ’void’ social housing units funded by the Transitional Accommodation Capital Programme (TACP) should be treated the same as acquisitions and included within the 20,000 target. Following this decision, we included voids delivered by TACP in our reporting against the target. 

Improving Homelessness Data Collection in Wales

Currently, homelessness data in Wales is gathered through aggregate returns from local authorities, providing information on households applying for housing assistance and the outcomes of those applications. Work is ongoing to transition to a new data collection approach that will capture individual-level data on homelessness applicants. We believe this shift will significantly enhance our understanding of homelessness in Wales and ultimately support efforts to improve outcomes for vulnerable individuals.

Over the summer, local authorities received a draft data specification. Workshops were held to discuss the draft specification and to gather feedback.

In September 2025, a data pilot was launched to cover October and November, where we will simulate the proposed quarterly data collections. A few local authorities were selected to take part in the data pilot. In November 2025, we began collecting pilot data for the October return. The pilot will continue into December where we plan to collect data for the November return and complete all the data testing. Findings and outcomes from the pilot will be shared with stakeholders in December 2025 / January 2026.

2027-28 Welsh Housing Survey

In May 2025, the Cabinet Secretary for Housing and Local Government approved a business case to undertake a new Welsh Housing Survey in 2027-28. Governance arrangements (consisting of a Project Team, Project Board and Technical Advisory Group) are now in place for the Housing Survey and options for the survey design are currently being reviewed. A procurement exercise is scheduled to begin by the end of 2025-26. If you wish to be added to the stakeholder list to receive updates about the Housing Survey, please contact stats.housing@gov.wales. 

Housing publications

Since the last update, the following statistical outputs have been published:

• Affordable housing provision: April 2024 to March 2025 (published 13 November)
• Affordable housing provision: ad hoc statistical request (published 13 November)
• New house building: October to December 2025 (published 6 November)
• Homelessness accommodation provision and rough sleeping: August 2025 (published 30 October)
• Fuel poverty modelled estimates for Wales: as at October 2024 (published 16 October)
• Help to Buy – Wales (Shared Equity Loan Scheme): April to June 2025 (published 2 October)

Please contact us via the stats.housing@gov.wales mailbox with any queries or requests.

Hospital statistics

This quarter we updated the monthly NHS activity and performance summary. This included new data on the new ambulance response model and more timely provisional data on pathways waiting to start treatment. We also updated our recently developed quarterly output on a deep dive of NHS performance for each Welsh Local Health Board and annual reports further examining long term; Trends in NHS urgent and emergency care activity and Trends in NHS planned care activity.

NHS workforce and expenditure

This quarter saw an update to our quarterly outputs on Staff directly employed by the NHS, Sickness absence in the NHS and NHS vacancy statistics including analysis analyses by staff group and staff characteristics. There was also a quarterly update to data on the General practice workforce. As well as an update to annual statistics on NHS expenditure programme budgets, on which we are seeking feedback from users whether this still needs to be an official statistic, or is better suited to being published through other channels.

Primary care and community health

This quarter we published an update to annual statistics on Primary care prescriptions and Eye care statistics, which summarises statistics on NHS eye care services including both primary and secondary care services. As well as annual statistics on Flying Start, plus a timelier quarterly update on the Flying Start phase 2 and 3 expansion monitoring data.

Other health and social services statistics

This quarter has also seen regular updates to a range of other statistics including; Eye care measures and Smoking cessation services. As well as an annual update of the Wellbeing of Wales report which includes a chapter on a healthier Wales and annual statistics on Cancer incidence by Public Health Wales and Care services and places regulated by the Care Inspectorate Wales.

All our statistical releases are available on the Statistics and research website and more detailed underlying data is available on the health and social care area of StatsWales. 

For further information or to get in touch please email stats.healthinfo@gov.wales.

Remote working statistical bulletin

The Remote Working statistical bulletin will be published on 16 December. The bulletin will examine the levels of remote working in Wales, and the characteristics of those who work remotely.

Results viewer updates

Further results from the 2024-25 National Survey for Wales will be published to the Results viewer. These will include, remote working, global citizenship, healthy lifestyle behaviours, arts participation, material deprivation, and more. From November, more results will be added to the Results Viewer on a monthly basis.

Please contact us at surveys@gov.wales if you have any questions.

Poverty and cost of living

Updated statistics for Discretionary assistance fund: April to August 2025 were published on 16 October, including local authority breakdowns.

 The Child Poverty Monitoring Framework was published on 2 December. This research report presents findings related to the Child Poverty Strategy objectives.

Welsh Index of Multiple Deprivation (WIMD)

On 27 November, we publish the Welsh Index of Multiple Deprivation (WIMD) 2025. This is a fresh set of ranks of relative deprivation for small areas in Wales, using the new Census 2021 Lower layer Super Output Areas (LSOAs). 

In the spring, we published a summary of your views on what data we should use to update WIMD. Thanks to the 80+ people and organisations who were involved in the survey and seminars. We used your feedback to include some changes to each of the eight domains of deprivation include in the index. These included new indicators on housing quality and inability to afford to enter owner occupation or the private rental market; improvements to the access to services domain to include childcare services; and new data on noise pollution in the physical environment domain. 

The WIMD report and data are available, with guidance on use also available. 

Crime and justice

We want your feedback on our Prisons and probation and Youth justice interactive dashboards. If you use them, please contact stats.inclusion@gov.wales.

In September, we published our Road traffic: 2024 and in October, we published provisional estimates for Police recorded road collisions: April to June 2025 and updated our interactive dashboard, including breakdowns such as severity of injury, type of road user and collision location on a map. In November, we published Police recorded road collisions: 2024 and Reported road casualties: 2024 which are more detailed analysis of the final 2024 police recorded road collisions and casualties. In mid-December, we will publish our Sea transport: 2024 which will include information on ship arrivals, foreign and domestic travel and cargo.

For feedback and comments please contact stats.transport@gov.wales 

Annual Population Survey

Welsh language data from the Annual Population Survey: July 2024 to June 2025 was published on 3 July. We also updated our StatsWales tables (Annual Population Survey: Welsh language).

These estimates were previously classed as accredited official statistics. The APS has seen a fall in sample sizes over recent years. Given this, and the fact that the survey has not been reweighted to the latest population estimates, the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) has agreed that this accreditation should be temporarily suspended and that the estimates should be re-designated as official statistics (OSR).

If you have any feedback or would like further information about any aspect of our work, please email: welshlanguagedata@gov.wales.

Decarbonisation and climate change

In October, we published Properties at risk of flooding in Wales (StatsWales).

Please email stats.environment@gov.wales for further information.

Agriculture

We will be publishing the results of the 2025 agricultural and horticultural survey in December. If you have any feedback or would like further information about any aspect of our work, please email: stats.agric@gov.wales

In October, we published Local authority revenue and capital outturn expenditure and Reserves held by schools.

If you have any feedback or would like further information, please email: stats.finance@gov.wales

Following the announcement earlier this summer of a £168 million UK-wide investment into ADR UK (Administrative Data Research UK), the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Welsh Language announced on the 18 September ADR Wales has been awarded £26 million to support research and data initiatives led by the team in Wales (ADR Wales). The renewed investment will allow ADR Wales to deepen its current research, expand into new policy areas, and continue to strengthen the collaboration between government and academia. 

The ADR UK partnership has published its annual report for 2024-2025. The publication outlines the successes, achievements and milestones across the four UK nations over the past year, including ADR Wales highlights. The report also outlining priorities for the future.

For further information or to get in touch please email stats.popcensus@gov.wales.

General statistics enquiries

Email: stats.info.desk@gov.wales 

Tel: 0300 025 5050

Subject specific

Contacts for statistics

X

@StatisticsWales

Welsh Government email newsletter and alert service

News and alerts

Admin queries

Email: kasadmin@gov.wales