Photo: DS Pugh · CC BY-SA 2.0With 0.5 jobs for each resident in work, most of Holywell commutes out
UK towns are the yardstick, and by them Holywell earns D− on jobs and income, #37 of 39 in Clwyd. The working day takes 2,005 residents elsewhere and brings 1,015 people in. Jobless benefit claims cover 3.8% of working-age residents, next to 2.7% in the typical UK town.
What sets Holywell apart on jobs and income
Longer journeys to work
Against 41% across Wales’ towns. 7% of commuters walk to work (10% across Wales’ towns). Getting to work ↓
More benefit claims than most towns
The typical UK town: 2.7%; England and Wales: 4% so far in 2026. Benefits over time ↓
Written from the data on this page: ONS Census 2021 and BRES, DWP claimant counts via Nomis, and ONS household income.
Holywell earns D− for jobs and income
Its four measures together rank it better than 4% of UK towns: #37 of 39 in Clwyd.
Its strongest measure is getting to jobs without a car; its weakest, employment deprivation.
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.
Walking, cycling, the bus or the train: 11% of Holywell’s commuters
Median journey 12.6 km; typical UK town 8.4 km.
28% of journeys to work are under 5 km (3 miles), against 41% across Wales’ towns, and 9% are 30 km or more. Holywell grades C 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.
How residents who travel to work get there, and how far they go (Census 2021, not counting those working mainly at home).
Jobless claims in the Flintshire council area are below England and Wales’ rate
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 Flintshire, which Nomis publishes monthly; the figures above the line are for Holywell’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 (Welsh Index of Multiple Deprivation 2025). The “most deprived tenth” compares areas within Wales only.
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).
A commuter town: Holywell sends out more workers than it takes in
3,361 residents were in work at the 2021 Census; 2,357 people worked in Holywell.
For every person who comes in to work, about 2 residents travel out. 14% of residents who travel to a workplace stay in the town; in the typical UK town of 2,500+ it’s 14%.
The middle of each bar is the same people: residents who work in the town or from home.
Holywell’s commuters work from Bagillt to Chester
- Countryside330
- Bagillt201
- Flint184
- Broughton112
- Garden City111
- Hawarden107
- Chester104
- Connah's Quay99
- Mold81
- Bodelwyddan68
86% of residents who travel to a workplace work outside Holywell; Bagillt takes the most (201). Coming the other way, Bagillt sends the most (148).
The ten places that send the most workers into Holywell, and the ten where its residents most often work (Census 2021, by home and workplace). Line width is the number of people.
1,750 jobs, one in four in manufacturing
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 (2,357). 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. Wales’ towns: all jobs in its built-up areas.
Jobs at workplaces in Holywell (employees and working owners, ONS Business Register and Employment Survey 2024).
The average household in Holywell has £43,477 a year
Higher than 18% of UK towns of 2,500+; the typical town is £52,385. The whole council area of Flintshire averages £46,479.
The town figure is ONS’s neighbourhood (MSOA) estimates shared out by where the town’s residents live.
Total household income before tax, mean, year to March 2023 (ONS small-area estimates).
Work, study, retirement: 54% of adults in Holywell are in work
The mix is close to Wales’ towns’ as a whole.
ONS Census 2021, tables TS066 (economic activity) and TS063 (occupation), output areas summed to the built-up area. Wales’ towns: everyone living in its built-up areas.
Everyone 16 and over, by what they were doing the week before the 2021 Census, and the jobs of those in work.
Holywell next to UK towns of 5,000 to 10,000
| # | Town | People | Jobs per worker | Work in own town | Claimants | Income | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Moor Park Hertfordshire | 5,850 | 2.2 | 17% | 1.1% | £86K | A+ |
| 2 | Twyford Berkshire | 8,072 | 0.9 | 11% | 1.5% | £82K | A+ |
| 3 | Esher Surrey | 9,484 | 1.6 | 12% | 1.6% | £91K | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 185 | Broughton Clwyd | 6,532 | 3 | 21% | 1.9% | £48K | B |
| … | |||||||
| 363 | Gwersyllt Clwyd | 7,112 | 0.4 | 5% | 2.7% | £45K | C− |
| … | |||||||
| 365 | Ruthin Clwyd | 5,700 | 1.7 | 36% | 2.5% | £46K | C− |
| … | |||||||
| 503 | Abertridwr and Senghenydd Gwent | 5,639 | 0.2 | 6% | 4.9% | £39K | D− |
| 504 | Kinmel Bay Clwyd | 9,016 | 0.9 | 14% | 4.3% | £37K | D− |
| 505 | Holywell Clwyd | 7,741 | 0.5 | 14% | 3.8% | £43K | D− |
| 506 | Welshpool Powys | 5,460 | 1.7 | 46% | 4% | £38K | D− |
| 507 | Maryport Cumbria | 8,526 | 0.6 | 19% | 3.6% | £37K | D− |
| … | |||||||
| 532 | Withernsea East Riding of Yorkshire | 5,766 | 0.7 | 35% | 5.4% | £39K | D− |
Jobs & income letters rank against every UK town of 1,000 or more; the order here is context only.
Ordered by Jobs & income Grade: the top three, the towns either side of Holywell, and others in Clwyd.
The work picture around Holywell
| Town | People | Jobs | Work in own town | Claimants | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Holywell | 7,741 | 1,750 | 14% | 3.8% | D− |
| Bagillt | 5,943 | 2,072 | 13% | 4.1% | D− |
| Pentre Halkyn | 1,082 | 176 | 2% | 2.2% | C |
| Flint | 12,776 | 5,114 | 21% | 3.5% | C− |
| Northop | 1,030 | 223 | 3% | 1.1% | B+ |
| Caldy | 1,227 | 350 | — | 0.7% | A |
| Neston | 14,963 | 4,127 | 19% | 2% | B− |
| Heswall | 29,082 | 5,745 | 13% | 1.7% | A− |
Jobs based in each place, commuters who stay in their own town, and the claimant rate.
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. Holywell 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 Flintshire as a whole; the claimant rate elsewhere on this page is Holywell’s built-up area, from small areas.
Questions about work in Holywell
Where do people in Holywell work?
At the 2021 Census, 14% of Holywell’s residents who travelled to work worked in the town itself; the most common other places were Bagillt (201), Flint (184) and Broughton (112). 30% 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 Holywell?
1,015 people who lived elsewhere worked in Holywell at the 2021 Census, 43% of its 2,357 workers. The most came from Bagillt (148), Flint (72) and Rhyl (45). 2,005 residents travelled out the other way.
How many jobs are there in Holywell?
About 1,750 jobs (employees and working owners) were based in Holywell in 2024, on ONS’s Business Register and Employment Survey: 0.5 for every resident in work, against 0.7 in the typical UK town. The biggest kinds of work are education (about 230), metal making (about 190) and shops (about 160).
Is Holywell a good place to find work?
Holywell earns a D− for jobs and income, better than 4% of UK towns on household income, the claimant rate, employment deprivation and access to jobs together. Mean household income £43,477; 3.8% of 16 to 64s claim unemployment benefits.
How do people in Holywell get to work?
86% of commuters go by car or van, 7% walk, 1% cycle and 3% take the bus or train; 28% travel under 5 km. Census 2021, taken during lockdown.
What is the average household income in Holywell?
Mean household income before tax was £43,477 in the year to March 2023 (ONS), against £52,385 in the typical UK town.
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) · Welsh Government, Welsh Index of Multiple 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.