Photo: Cruccone · CC BY 3.0Households in Bar Hill have higher incomes than those in 93% of UK towns
Bar Hill grades A+ for jobs and income against UK towns, #4 of 50 in Cambridgeshire. 2,412 jobs are based in Bar Hill for 2,094 residents in work. On a working day the town fills up: 1,239 people commute in. 24% of residents who travel to work go less than 3 miles.
What Bar Hill’s work numbers say
A local job centre
2,412 jobs are based in Bar Hill for 2,094 working residents; the typical UK town has 0.7 jobs per resident in work. Shops, machinery and education make up 43% of them. Jobs based here ↓
Longer journeys to work
Against 45% across England’s towns. 13% of commuters walk to work (11% across England’s towns). Getting to work ↓
Fewer benefit claims than most towns
The typical UK town: 2.7%; England and Wales: 4% so far in 2026. Claims across the South Cambridgeshire council area have run below the national rate every month since 2015. Benefits over time ↓
Written from the data on this page: ONS Census 2021 and BRES, DWP claimant counts via Nomis, and ONS household income.
Bar Hill grades A+ for jobs and income
Better than 95% of UK towns on four measures together: #4 of 50 in Cambridgeshire.
Its strongest measure is household income; its weakest, getting to jobs without a car.
How the grade works
Each input is ranked against every UK town of 1,000 or more (higher income and job access are better; fewer claimants and less employment deprivation are better), the four ranks are averaged, and the average is ranked again. A town needs three of the four.
2,412 jobs, 18% in manufacturing
Jobs at workplaces in Bar Hill (employees and working owners, ONS Business Register and Employment Survey 2024). 1.2 for every working resident; the typical UK town has 0.7.
BRES counts jobs, not people (a part-time job and a second job count once each), so it runs above the Census count of people working here (2,486). Small areas are shared out to the town by where their Census 2021 workers were based; kinds of work are BRES industry divisions (SIC 2007), rounded. England’s towns: all jobs in its built-up areas.
24% of Bar Hill’s commuters walk, cycle, or take the bus or train
How residents who travel to work get there, and how far they go (Census 2021, not counting those working mainly at home). Median journey 8.4 km; typical UK town 8.4 km.
24% of journeys to work are under 5 km (3 miles), against 45% across England’s towns, and 5% are 30 km or more. Bar Hill grades A for walkability: the share of commuters who walk, cycle or take public transport, against UK towns.
ONS Census 2021, TS061 (method of travel) and TS058 (distance, straight line from home to workplace), output areas summed. Census day fell in the third lockdown, so fewer people travelled than usual.
Jobless claims in the South Cambridgeshire council area have run below England and Wales every month since 2015
Claimant rate since 2015: people claiming Jobseeker’s Allowance or Universal Credit while looking for work, as a share of residents aged 16 to 64 (DWP, via Nomis).
South Cambridgeshire’s rate was about 0.8% in 2019, peaked at 3.4% in August 2020 and has averaged 1.9% in 2026, against 4% across England and Wales. Claims everywhere stay higher than before the pandemic, partly because Universal Credit counts more people on low pay as looking for work.
The chart is the whole council area of South Cambridgeshire, which Nomis publishes monthly; the figures above the line are for Bar Hill’s built-up area. Claimant count: people claiming Jobseeker’s Allowance, or Universal Credit while required to look for work. Employment deprivation counts people out of work on Jobseeker’s Allowance, Employment and Support Allowance, Incapacity Benefit, Severe Disablement Allowance, Carer’s Allowance or the Universal Credit equivalents (English Indices of Deprivation 2025). The “most deprived tenth” compares areas within England only.
Every working day, Bar Hill’s workforce grows by 19%
2,094 residents were in work at the 2021 Census; 2,486 people worked in Bar Hill. The middle of each bar is the same people: residents who work in the town or from home.
20% of residents who travel to a workplace stay in the town; in the typical UK town of 2,500+ it’s 14%.
Bar Hill’s workers come from Cambridge to Peterborough
The ten places that send the most workers into Bar Hill, and the ten where its residents most often work (Census 2021, by home and workplace). Line width is the number of people.
- Cambridge136
- Longstanton and Northstowe62
- Countryside60
- Huntingdon51
- Willingham49
- St Ives46
- Cambourne37
- Swavesey37
- Peterborough35
- Over32
- Cambridge438
- Countryside43
- Histon and Impington23
- Milton21
- Huntingdon21
- Longstanton and Northstowe15
- Over12
- Teversham11
- Great Abington9
- Toft9
Cambridge, 6 miles away, sends 136 people, more than any other town; in all, 50% of the people who work in Bar Hill live outside it. Going the other way, Cambridge is the biggest single destination (438).
Mean household income: £72,458 a year
Total household income before tax, mean, year to March 2023 (ONS small-area estimates). Higher than 92% of UK towns of 2,500+; the typical town is £52,385. The whole council area of South Cambridgeshire averages £72,422.
The town figure is ONS’s neighbourhood (MSOA) estimates shared out by where the town’s residents live.
65% of adults in Bar Hill are in work
Everyone 16 and over, by what they were doing the week before the 2021 Census, and the jobs of those in work.
Compared with England’s towns, 4% are full-time students (against 7%), 65% are in work (against 57%) and 2% are long-term sick or disabled (against 4%).
ONS Census 2021, tables TS066 (economic activity) and TS063 (occupation), output areas summed to the built-up area. England’s towns: everyone living in its built-up areas.
Bar Hill is 39th of 525 UK towns of 3,000 to 5,000 for jobs and income
Ordered by Jobs & income Grade: the top three, the towns either side of Bar Hill, and others in Cambridgeshire.
| # | Town | People | Jobs per worker | Work in own town | Claimants | Income | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Brookmans Park Hertfordshire | 4,033 | 0.9 | 7% | 1.2% | £79K | A+ |
| 2 | Charvil Berkshire | 3,158 | 0.4 | 2% | 1.4% | £83K | A+ |
| 3 | Barnt Green Worcestershire | 3,821 | 0.7 | 4% | 1.2% | £77K | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 5 | Girton Cambridgeshire | 4,384 | 0.8 | 7% | 1.1% | £72K | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 37 | Chalfont St Giles Buckinghamshire | 4,707 | 0.5 | 8% | 1.7% | £78K | A+ |
| 38 | Old Basing Hampshire | 3,834 | 0.7 | 6% | 1.6% | £67K | A+ |
| 39 | Bar Hill Cambridgeshire | 3,899 | 1.2 | 20% | 1.7% | £72K | A+ |
| 40 | Dunnington North Yorkshire | 3,256 | 1.4 | 7% | 1.1% | £62K | A+ |
| 41 | Knebworth Hertfordshire | 4,191 | 0.5 | 7% | 1.8% | £71K | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 56 | Fulbourn Cambridgeshire | 3,737 | 0.8 | 6% | 1.4% | £67K | A |
| … | |||||||
| 77 | Milton Cambridgeshire | 4,150 | 6 | 16% | 2.5% | £76K | A |
| … | |||||||
| 525 | Alford Lincolnshire | 3,831 | 0.8 | 31% | 4% | £36K | D− |
Jobs & income letters rank against every UK town of 1,000 or more; the order here is context only.
Work in the places around Bar Hill
Jobs based in each place, commuters who stay in their own town, and the claimant rate.
| Town | People | Jobs | Work in own town | Claimants | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bar Hill | 3,899 | 2,412 | 20% | 1.7% | A+ |
| Oakington | 1,494 | 700 | 4% | 2.5% | A− |
| Longstanton and Northstowe | 5,278 | 1,127 | 5% | 2.6% | A |
| Hardwick | 2,658 | 300 | 5% | 1.4% | A |
| Girton | 4,384 | 1,500 | 7% | 1.1% | A+ |
| Swavesey | 2,739 | 2,200 | 10% | 1.8% | A |
| Highfields Caldecote | 2,049 | 469 | 2% | 2.3% | A− |
| Histon and Impington | 7,781 | 5,053 | 16% | 1.7% | A+ |
What this data can and can’t tell you
- The Census was taken in lockdown. Census day was 21 March 2021, during the third national lockdown: many people were furloughed or working from home, so fewer travelled to work, and journeys were shorter, than before the pandemic or since. The flows on this page show where people worked that spring.
- At home and no fixed place are one figure. In the workplace flows, ONS puts people who mainly worked at home and people with no fixed workplace (drivers, builders, care workers on rounds) at their home address, so the two can’t be told apart there.
- Towns are built-up areas. Bar Hill here is ONS’s built-up area: the town as built, not its council district. A workplace on an estate or farm outside every built-up area counts as “outside any built-up area”.
- Jobs are counted where they are. BRES counts jobs at each workplace (employees and working owners, rounded by ONS), so a town with a hospital, university or big employer can have more jobs than working residents. Small areas are shared out to towns by where their Census workers were based.
- The benefits chart is the council area. Nomis publishes the claimant count monthly for councils back to 2013, so the line is South Cambridgeshire as a whole; the claimant rate elsewhere on this page is Bar Hill’s built-up area, from small areas.
Questions about work in Bar Hill
Where do people in Bar Hill work?
At the 2021 Census, 20% of Bar Hill’s residents who travelled to work worked in the town itself; the most common other places were Cambridge (438), Histon and Impington (23) and Milton (21). 50% of working residents worked mainly at home or had no fixed workplace; the Census was taken in lockdown, so home working was unusually high.
How many people commute into Bar Hill?
1,239 people who lived elsewhere worked in Bar Hill at the 2021 Census, 50% of its 2,486 workers. The most came from Cambridge (136), Longstanton and Northstowe (62) and Huntingdon (51). 837 residents travelled out the other way.
How many jobs are there in Bar Hill?
About 2,410 jobs (employees and working owners) were based in Bar Hill in 2024, on ONS’s Business Register and Employment Survey: 1.2 for every resident in work, against 0.7 in the typical UK town. The biggest kinds of work are shops (about 370), machinery (about 330) and education (about 330).
Is Bar Hill a good place to find work?
Bar Hill earns an A+ for jobs and income, better than 95% of UK towns on household income, the claimant rate, employment deprivation and access to jobs together. Mean household income £72,458; 1.7% of 16 to 64s claim unemployment benefits.
How do people in Bar Hill get to work?
72% of commuters go by car or van, 13% walk, 4% cycle and 7% take the bus or train; 24% travel under 5 km. Census 2021, taken during lockdown.
What is the average household income in Bar Hill?
Mean household income before tax was £72,458 in the year to March 2023 (ONS), against £52,385 in the typical UK town.
How does Bar Hill compare with Peterborough for jobs?
Bar Hill has 1.2 jobs per working resident against Peterborough’s 1.3, a 1.7% claimant rate against 5.9%, and mean household income of £72,458 against £52,145.
Sources: ONS Census 2021 origin-destination data, place of work (ODWP01EW), output areas summed to the ONS 2022 built-up area · ONS Census 2021 tables TS058 (distance), TS061 (method of travel), TS063 (occupation) and TS066 (economic activity) · ONS Business Register and Employment Survey via Nomis (open access), by industry division · ONS small-area income estimates (financial year ending 2023); House of Commons Library MSOA names · DWP claimant count via Nomis (towns January to August 2026; councils, regions and England and Wales monthly since January 2015) · MHCLG English Indices of Deprivation 2025 · DfT Transport Connectivity Metric (employment) · TownRatings grades: our own summary of the data, ranked against UK towns only. All under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Contains HM Land Registry data © Crown copyright and database right 2026. Contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right 2026 (ONS boundaries). Northern Ireland: Source: NISRA; contains Land & Property Services data and Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland information, © Crown copyright, licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Scotland: contains National Records of Scotland data, Registers of Scotland data and SEPA data, © Crown copyright / © SEPA 2025, licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.