Work Programme statistics
Statistics on people who joined the Work Programme, participants who achieved defined periods in work and participants who completed the programme.
The Work Programme statistical series has ended. This final release of statistics was published on 30 September 2020.
The Work Programme began in Great Britain in June 2011 and was part of a number of welfare to work reforms aimed at getting unemployed people into sustained work.
It used private and public companies, called Providers, to find work for claimants transferred to them from Jobcentre Plus at specified points in their claim. The Providers were primarily paid for defined outcomes related to sustained employment.
We also publish a number of more detailed data tables on the Work Programme in:
- Stat-Xplore – an online tool for exploring some of DWP’s main statistics. Use Stat-Xplore to create your own tables and charts
- Work Programme: cohort and time series data
Final release
This final release of statistics was published on 30 September 2020.
Previous releases
During the development of the final release (Work Programme statistical summary, data to June 2020), an error was detected in the releases published from April 2015 to March 2018. In those releases, for Sustainment Outcome payments, the wrong validation rates were applied to the contracts. This has been corrected in the final release and the back series has been revised. However, there may be a few small discrepancies when comparing Sustainment Outcome payments by contract in the September 2020 release to releases between April 2015 and March 2018. Read the Background Information Note for more information about this.
Consultation and feedback
Complete our Work Programme statistics questionnaire to tell us what you think about our statistics.
Join the ‘Welfare and benefits’ community at www.statsusernet.org.uk. We’ll post announcements and background information in this forum. You can also use the forum to discuss statistical issues with other users.
We ran a consultation in 2013 on how Work Programme statistics are presented. Read the outcome of this consultation below.
Updates to this page
Last updated 30 September 2020 + show all updates
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Added latest Work Programme statistical summary, with data to June 2020. This is the final release of these statistics.
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Updated information about a delay to the next release of the Work Programme statistics. These are now due for publication in March 2020.
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Updated information about a delay to the next release of the Work Programme statistics.
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Added a note about a delay to the next release of Work Programme statistics, data to June 2018.
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Added latest Work Programme statistical summary with data to December 2017.
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Added latest Work Programme statistical summary with data to June 2017.
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Added latest Work Programme statistics (data to March 2017).
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Added latest Work Programme statistics (data to December 2016).
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Added latest Work Programme statistics (data to September 2016).
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Added latest Work Programme statistics (data to June 2016).
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Published latest Work Programme statistics (data to March 2016).
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Published latest Work Programme statistics (data to December 2015).
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Published 'Work Programme statistical summary: data to 30 September 2015'.
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Added the latest Work Programme statistics to June 2015.
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Published Work Programme statistical summary: data to March 2015 and updated background information note.
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Published 'Work Programme statistical summary: data to 30 December 2014' and revised background information note.
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Published latest Work Programme statistical summary with data to 30 September 2014.
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Published latest Work Programme statistical summary with data to 30 June 2014.
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Published latest Work Programme statistical summary with data to 31 March 2014.
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Published links to underlying data for the cohort and time series visualisations and guidance on how to use it.
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March 2014 statistics release with data to December 2013.
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December 2013 stats release published
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Added a link to the Work Programme statistics questionnaire
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First published.