Photo: Colin Kinnear · CC BY-SA 2.0Penrith has lower household incomes than 90% of UK towns
Set against UK towns, the Jobs & income grade of Penrith is C+, #10 of 23 in Cumbria. On a working day 3,916 people commute in: the town fills up.
Work in Penrith, in a few figures
A local job centre
11,486 jobs are based in Penrith for 8,361 working residents; the typical UK town has 0.7 jobs per resident in work. Public administration and defence, shops and road and rail transport make up 32% of them. Jobs based here ↓
Short journeys to work
Against 45% across England’s towns. 26% of commuters walk to work, about 2.3 times the share across England’s towns. Getting to work ↓
Written from the data on this page: ONS Census 2021 and BRES, DWP claimant counts via Nomis, and ONS household income.
Penrith earns C+ for jobs and income
Better than 37% of UK towns on four measures taken together: #10 of 23 in Cumbria.
Its strongest measure is getting to jobs without a car; its weakest, household income.
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.
11,486 jobs, one in seven in public administration and defence
1.4 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 (9,705). 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.
Jobs at workplaces in Penrith (employees and working owners, ONS Business Register and Employment Survey 2024).
One way or another, 32% of Penrith’s commuters skip the car
Median journey 2 km; typical UK town 8.4 km.
59% of journeys to work are under 5 km (3 miles), against 45% across England’s towns, and 11% are 30 km or more. Penrith 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.
How residents who travel to work get there, and how far they go (Census 2021, not counting those working mainly at home).
Penrith fills up on a working day: 16% more workers
8,361 residents were in work at the 2021 Census; 9,705 people worked in Penrith.
For every resident who leaves Penrith for work, about 2 people come in. 53% 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.
Most of Penrith’s incomers live in Carlisle and the places around
- Countryside1,601
- Carlisle737
- Appleby-in-Westmorland138
- Clifton101
- Lazonby78
- Kendal76
- Shap62
- Langwathby61
- Stainton60
- Kirkby Thore57
- Countryside1,083
- Carlisle420
- Langwathby143
- Lazonby116
- Kendal82
- Appleby-in-Westmorland80
- Kirkby Thore69
- Keswick65
- Stainton45
- Kirkby Stephen32
Carlisle, 17 miles away, sends 737 people, more than any other town; in all, 40% of the people who work in Penrith live outside it. Going the other way, Carlisle is the biggest single destination (420).
The ten places that send the most workers into Penrith, and the ten where its residents most often work (Census 2021, by home and workplace). Line width is the number of people.
Income in Penrith: £41,768 per household a year
Higher than 12% of UK towns of 2,500+; the typical town is £52,385. The whole council area of Eden averages £43,938.
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).
Jobless claims in the Westmorland and Furness council area have run below England and Wales every month since 2015
Westmorland and Furness’ rate was about 1.6% in 2019, peaked at 4.5% in May 2020 and has averaged 1.8% 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 Westmorland and Furness, which Nomis publishes monthly; the figures above the line are for Penrith’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.
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).
59% of people 16 and over in Penrith are in work
Compared with England’s towns, 4% are full-time students (against 7%) and 26% are retired (against 21%).
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.
Everyone 16 and over, by what they were doing the week before the 2021 Census, and the jobs of those in work.
Penrith next to UK towns of 12,000 to 23,000: 184th of 334 on jobs and income
| # | Town | People | Jobs per worker | Work in own town | Claimants | Income | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Hale Greater Manchester | 16,716 | 0.7 | 7% | 1.1% | £73K | A+ |
| 2 | Ashtead Surrey | 14,830 | 0.7 | 16% | 1.2% | £80K | A+ |
| 3 | Chorleywood Hertfordshire | 12,632 | 0.5 | 8% | 1.5% | £86K | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 182 | Sidmouth Devon | 13,258 | 0.9 | 39% | 2% | £49K | C+ |
| 183 | Northallerton North Yorkshire | 13,314 | 2 | 51% | 2.6% | £49K | C+ |
| 184 | Penrith Cumbria | 16,705 | 1.4 | 53% | 2.4% | £42K | C+ |
| 185 | Rochford Essex | 12,617 | 1.2 | 12% | 3.6% | £52K | C+ |
| 186 | Thornton Lancashire | 19,263 | 0.5 | 13% | 2.5% | £42K | C+ |
| … | |||||||
| 270 | Whitehaven Cumbria | 22,952 | 0.7 | 33% | 2.8% | £45K | C− |
| … | |||||||
| 323 | Workington Cumbria | 21,276 | 1 | 38% | 4.4% | £39K | D |
| … | |||||||
| 334 | Maesteg Mid Glamorgan | 18,342 | 0.4 | 23% | 3.8% | £37K | 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 Penrith, and others in Cumbria.
Work in the places around Penrith
| Town | People | Jobs | Work in own town | Claimants | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Penrith | 16,705 | 11,486 | 53% | 2.4% | C+ |
| Appleby-in-Westmorland | 3,233 | 1,100 | 30% | 1.7% | C |
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. Penrith 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 Westmorland and Furness as a whole; the claimant rate elsewhere on this page is Penrith’s built-up area, from small areas.
Questions about work in Penrith
Where do people in Penrith work?
At the 2021 Census, 53% of Penrith’s residents who travelled to work worked in the town itself; the most common other places were Carlisle (420), Langwathby (143) and Lazonby (116). 35% 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 Penrith?
3,916 people who lived elsewhere worked in Penrith at the 2021 Census, 40% of its 9,705 workers. The most came from Carlisle (737), Appleby-in-Westmorland (138) and Clifton (101). 2,530 residents travelled out the other way.
How many jobs are there in Penrith?
About 11,500 jobs (employees and working owners) were based in Penrith in 2024, on ONS’s Business Register and Employment Survey: 1.4 for every resident in work, against 0.7 in the typical UK town. The biggest kinds of work are public administration and defence (about 1,650), shops (about 1,330) and road and rail transport (about 760).
Is Penrith a good place to find work?
Penrith earns a C+ for jobs and income, better than 37% of UK towns on household income, the claimant rate, employment deprivation and access to jobs together. Mean household income £41,768; 2.4% of 16 to 64s claim unemployment benefits.
How do people in Penrith get to work?
66% of commuters go by car or van, 26% walk, 2% cycle and 4% take the bus or train; 59% travel under 5 km. Census 2021, taken during lockdown.
What is the average household income in Penrith?
Mean household income before tax was £41,768 in the year to March 2023 (ONS), against £52,385 in the typical UK town.
How does Penrith compare with Carlisle for jobs?
Penrith has 1.4 jobs per working resident against Carlisle’s 1.2, a 2.4% claimant rate against 2.9%, and mean household income of £41,768 against £39,267.
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.