Photo: Jonathan Thacker · CC BY-SA 2.0Ripley has lower household incomes than 82% of UK towns
Set against UK towns, the Jobs & income grade of Ripley is C, #36 of 59 in Derbyshire. 5,865 people come in to work on a working day, and the town fills up. Jobless benefit claims cover 2.8% of working-age residents, where the typical UK town’s rate is 2.7%.
What Ripley’s work numbers say
A local job centre
11,007 jobs are based in Ripley for 9,531 working residents; the typical UK town has 0.7 jobs per resident in work. Public administration and defence, building trades and civil engineering make up 42% of them. Jobs based here ↓
The town fills up on a working day
5,865 people come in to work and 4,663 residents go out, so Ripley gains about 1,202 workers a day. Derby sends the most (707). The daily tide ↓
Written from the data on this page: ONS Census 2021 and BRES, DWP claimant counts via Nomis, and ONS household income.
On jobs and income, Ripley grades C
Better than 32% of UK towns once its four measures are combined: #36 of 59 in Derbyshire.
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.
11,007 jobs, 28% in public administration and defence
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 (10,723). 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 Ripley (employees and working owners, ONS Business Register and Employment Survey 2024).
A working day adds 13% to the people at work in Ripley
9,531 residents were in work at the 2021 Census; 10,723 people worked in Ripley.
25% 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.
Ripley’s workers come from Derby to South Normanton and Pinxton
- Derby707
- Heanor576
- Somercotes and Swanwick490
- Belper436
- Countryside331
- Ilkeston184
- South Normanton and Pinxton166
- Alfreton162
- Chesterfield125
- Kilburn and Horsley Woodhouse122
- Derby838
- Countryside458
- Somercotes and Swanwick363
- Heanor315
- Belper261
- Nottingham206
- Alfreton205
- South Normanton and Pinxton182
- Ilkeston164
- Eastwood116
Derby, 10 miles away, sends 707 people, more than any other town; in all, 55% of the people who work in Ripley live outside it. Going the other way, Derby is the biggest single destination (838).
The ten places that send the most workers into Ripley, and the ten where its residents most often work (Census 2021, by home and workplace). Line width is the number of people.
The mean household in Ripley has £44,408 before tax
Higher than 22% of UK towns of 2,500+; the typical town is £52,385. The whole council area of Amber Valley averages £48,645.
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).
Household incomes in Ripley, part by part: £42K to £48K
Mean household income before tax in each of the 3 neighbourhoods (MSOAs) mostly inside the town: the highest is 1.1 times the lowest.
Each dot is a neighbourhood (MSOA, about 8,000 people) mostly inside Ripley; names from the House of Commons Library. ONS gives each a 95% range of roughly ±£7K to ±£10K, so neighbourhoods close together on the strip may not really differ.
Walking, cycling, the bus or the train: 15% of Ripley’s commuters
Median journey 7.2 km; typical UK town 8.4 km.
40% of journeys to work are under 5 km (3 miles), against 45% across England’s towns, and 4% are 30 km or more. Ripley grades B− 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 Amber Valley council area have run below England and Wales every month since 2015
Amber Valley’s rate was about 2.1% in 2019, peaked at 5.1% in May 2020 and has averaged 2.6% 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 Amber Valley, which Nomis publishes monthly; the figures above the line are for Ripley’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).
What adults in Ripley do: 56% are in work
Compared with England’s towns, 4% are full-time students (against 7%) and 27% 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.
Ripley is 189th of 308 UK towns of 14,000 to 27,000 for 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 | Knowle and Dorridge West Midlands | 19,323 | 0.6 | 13% | 1.5% | £79K | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 47 | Dronfield Derbyshire | 21,161 | 0.7 | 19% | 1.6% | £54K | A |
| … | |||||||
| 101 | Belper Derbyshire | 19,076 | 0.5 | 19% | 2.1% | £51K | B |
| … | |||||||
| 111 | Glossop Derbyshire | 17,820 | 0.5 | 24% | 2.2% | £54K | B |
| … | |||||||
| 187 | Hythe Kent | 14,613 | 0.6 | 18% | 2.8% | £52K | C |
| 188 | Teignmouth Devon | 15,314 | 0.5 | 25% | 2.5% | £49K | C |
| 189 | Ripley Derbyshire | 20,191 | 1.2 | 25% | 2.8% | £44K | C |
| 190 | South Ockendon Essex | 22,441 | 0.4 | 9% | 5.3% | £53K | C |
| 191 | Stapleford Nottinghamshire | 15,041 | 0.4 | 11% | 4.1% | £48K | C |
| … | |||||||
| 308 | 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 Ripley, and others in Derbyshire.
Work in the places around Ripley
| Town | People | Jobs | Work in own town | Claimants | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ripley | 20,191 | 11,007 | 25% | 2.8% | C |
| Somercotes and Swanwick | 15,105 | 7,408 | 19% | 3.1% | C |
| Heage | 2,584 | 1,121 | 5% | 1.9% | B− |
| Ironville | 1,824 | 189 | 3% | 5.2% | D |
| Denby Bottles | 1,756 | 439 | 1% | 1.6% | A− |
| Jacksdale and Westwood | 2,758 | 3,060 | 7% | 3.1% | C− |
| Ambergate | 1,566 | 365 | 7% | 1.7% | B+ |
| Heanor | 24,264 | 7,218 | 20% | 3.4% | 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. Ripley 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 Amber Valley as a whole; the claimant rate elsewhere on this page is Ripley’s built-up area, from small areas.
Questions about work in Ripley
Where do people in Ripley work?
At the 2021 Census, 25% of Ripley’s residents who travelled to work worked in the town itself; the most common other places were Derby (838), Somercotes and Swanwick (363) and Heanor (315). 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 Ripley?
5,865 people who lived elsewhere worked in Ripley at the 2021 Census, 55% of its 10,723 workers. The most came from Derby (707), Heanor (576) and Somercotes and Swanwick (490). 4,663 residents travelled out the other way.
How many jobs are there in Ripley?
About 11,000 jobs (employees and working owners) were based in Ripley 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 public administration and defence (about 3,070), building trades (about 870) and civil engineering (about 650).
Is Ripley a good place to find work?
Ripley earns a C for jobs and income, better than 32% of UK towns on household income, the claimant rate, employment deprivation and access to jobs together. Mean household income £44,408; 2.8% of 16 to 64s claim unemployment benefits.
How do people in Ripley get to work?
84% of commuters go by car or van, 10% walk, 1% cycle and 4% take the bus or train; 40% travel under 5 km. Census 2021, taken during lockdown.
What is the average household income in Ripley?
Mean household income before tax was £44,408 in the year to March 2023 (ONS), against £52,385 in the typical UK town. By neighbourhood it runs from £41,935 in Ripley East, Riddings & Ironville to £47,920 in Ripley West.
How does Ripley compare with Derby for jobs?
Ripley has 1.2 jobs per working resident against Derby’s 1.1, a 2.8% claimant rate against 5%, and mean household income of £44,408 against £49,325.
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.