Following a review of the population benchmarks used in the Labour Force Survey releases for Q3 and Q4 2025, published on 20 November 2025 and 19 February 2026 respectively, processing and compilation issues were identified in the demography benchmarks.
As a result, the data and text were revised on 21 May 2026. The updated benchmarks provide a more accurate reflection of the population by country of citizenship and resulted in minor revisions to some previously published estimates. Further details on these revisions are available in the Information Note. We apologise for any inconvenience caused.
The number of persons not in the labour force in Q4 2025 was 1,535,900, which was up 14,100 (+0.9%) from a year earlier.
Persons aged 15 years or over are classified as not being in the Labour Force (Inactive) if they do not satisfy the ILO criteria for being classified as Employed or Unemployed – see Background Notes.
The Potential Additional Labour Force (PALF) is the sum of the two groups ‘Seeking work but not immediately available’ and ‘Available for work but not seeking work’. Persons in the PALF are not part of the standard labour force, which encompasses only Employed and Unemployed people, but they have a stronger attachment to the labour market than other persons not in the labour force.
The Potential Additional Labour Force for Q4 2025 was 111,500, which was made up of 94,000 persons Available but not seeking work and 17,500 persons Seeking but not immediately available for work. The total PALF of 111,500 is down from 113,700 in Q4 2024.
| Q4 2023 | Q4 2024 | Q4 2025 | |
| Available for work but not seeking work | 90000 | 93500 | 94000 |
| Seeking work but not immediately available | 15700 | 20200 | 17500 |
Of those who stated that they wanted to work but were not seeking work or available for work in Q4 2025, 30.3% said this was due to education or training. This compares to 25.0% a year earlier. Persons not seeking work due to own illness or disability accounted for 27.6% of the total in Q4 2025, down from 32.0% in Q4 2024.
| Q4 2023 | Q4 2024 | Q4 2025 | |
| Other reasons | 14400 | 14800 | 13600 |
| Care responsibilities/personal family reasons | 26900 | 22700 | 21700 |
| Own illness or disability | 33100 | 27900 | 23000 |
| Education or training | 28000 | 21800 | 25400 |
Detailed breakdown of persons not in the Labour Force is available in Supplementary Table S5 - LFS Time Series.
Additional data on Potential Labour Supply with explanatory notes are available in QLF30.
Learn about our data and confidentiality safeguards, and the steps we take to produce statistics that can be trusted by all.