Our statistics about Ireland are independent and reliable, because you told us.
The information you give us means we can create a very accurate picture of Ireland, our lives, our economy, our health and our happiness.
The SES, which is being undertaken by the Central Statistics Office (CSO), is a nationwide survey of Irish employees that provides detailed information on earnings statistics. It is a compulsory survey carried out in all European Union member states by institutes including the Central Statistics Office (CSO).
In Ireland, this statutory survey is conducted under the provisions of the statistics (Structure of Earnings Survey) Order 2025 (S.I. No 574) made under Section 25 of the 1993 Statistics Act.
The CSO is Ireland’s national statistics office, and our purpose is to impartially gather, analyse, and publish statistics and insights about Ireland, our people, our society, and our economy. We collect data under the Statistics Act, 1993 to provide official statistics that are independently produced and verified and can be used to inform decision making across all aspects of our society.
The CSO conducts household and business surveys throughout the year, as well as the census, and no individual, household, or enterprise can be identified from the data we publish. The CSO has been trusted for 75 years and counting to provide accurate and verifiable statistics about Irish life and society. Protecting data confidentiality is at the heart of everything we do. You can learn more about why you trust the CSO on the Trust & Transparency section of our website.
We can’t survey everyone in Ireland, so we take a random selection of 40,000 employees from all over the country. It is important that everyone selected takes part. The facts we get directly from you through SES help policy makers when making decisions that affect us all, such as low pay and the gender pay gap. The results also help the EU compare earnings across all member states.
It depends on your employment, but we believe that, on average, it won’t take longer than 10 minutes.
The CSO collects contact details from a wide range of sources, both from social surveys and statistical data sources made available to us under the Statistics Act, 1993. All data collected and used by the CSO is stored securely and is only used for the purpose of producing national and international statistics.
Under Section 25(1) of the 1993 Statistics Act, you are obliged by law to complete and submit this survey. All persons selected for this survey are mandated under the statistics act to take part.
Randomly selected individuals will receive a letter from the CSO to participate in the survey. Taking part is straightforward: you can access the survey via the link below or by scanning the QR code provided in your letter using a mobile device. You will then be asked to enter your CSO Identifier and secure PIN, as printed in your letter, to begin the survey.
https://socialsurveys.cso.ie/weblogin/
If you are unable to do the survey online, please contact us on (021) 453 5110 or email CSOTakePart@cso.ie giving your name and CSO Identifier (provided in your letter), and we will do what we can to assist you.
We analyse the data and publish it by categories such as age group and gender and it is anonymised. Nobody is identifiable from this data. We never share your data with any other agency or government department, and once published, we delete data that we don’t require. Further data protection information regarding the SES is available on the CSO website at this link: https://link.cso.ie/SEStn
Confidentiality is a core value of the CSO. The CSO will never share your information with another company, enterprise, or government department or body. We only use your data for statistical purposes. That means we remove all identifying information including your name and your specific address. We use broad information such as the general area where you live (e.g. Cork), your age and your sex, and then aggregate this data so nobody is identifiable from the data provided.
For more information about this survey and how your data will be used, please contact CSO Take Part on:
Phone: 021 453 5110
Email: CSOTakePart@cso.ie.
Contact: CSO Surveys,
Central Statistics Office,
Skehard Road, Cork,
T12 X00E
For more information, visit us online at https://link.cso.ie/ses.
Learn about our data and confidentiality safeguards, and the steps we take to produce statistics that can be trusted by all.