Trade union membership statistics for 2021 published

The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy has published the 2021 national statistics on trade union membership using the Labour Force Survey to provide an estimate of the levels and density of trade union membership for all UK workers. The report includes estimates presented by gender, sector, age, industry, region, and occupation, and covers union presence and collective bargaining.

The figures also showed:

• the proportion of UK employees who were trade union members fell to 23.1% in 2021, down from 23.7% in 2020. This represents the lowest union membership rate on record among UK employees since 1995
• up to 2020, the rise in the percentage of UK employees who were trade union members since 2017 was driven by female membership. The downturn in membership rates this year has also been primarily driven by female membership, however, the female membership rate fell from 27.2% to 26.3% from 2020 to 2021—the lowest rate since 2018. The male membership rate fell by just 0.3% percentage points in the same period, the lowest rate on record for male employees since 1995
• the number of UK employees who were trade union members fell by 62,000 to 6.44 million in 2021. Membership levels have fallen for the first time after four years of consecutive growth
• the fall in trade union numbers among employees was driven by the decrease in public sector members, down 58,000 on the year to 3.9 million in 2021. There was a relatively small fall in trade union membership numbers among private sector employees of 4,000 to 2.56 million in 2021, its lowest level since 2011
• just under half of employees who were trade union members had been working for the same employer for ten years or more, compared to 29% of employees overall. In addition, over three quarters of employees who were trade union members were aged 35 or over, compared to 63% of employees overall
• the proportion of employees who were trade union members fell in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland in 2021. Membership density was down to 21.6% in England (the lowest on record), to 28.4% in Scotland and to 31.4% in Northern Ireland. In contrast, the proportion of employees who were trade union members in Wales rose by 3.7 percentage points to 35.6%, its highest since 2014

Issue Date: 27 May 2022

Issuing Department: Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS)

Jurisdiction: England; Northern Ireland; Scotland; Wales

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