Photo: Gary Rogers · CC BY-SA 2.0There are 1.8 jobs in Woolacombe for every resident in work
39% of commuters travel less than 3 miles. Each working day 196 people travel in to work, so the village fills up. Woolacombe has no Jobs & income Grade.
The work figures that set Woolacombe apart
A local job centre
591 jobs are based in Woolacombe for 327 working residents; the typical UK town has 0.7 jobs per resident in work. Restaurants, cafés and pubs, hotels and holiday accommodation and shops make up 59% of them. Jobs based here ↓
Fewer 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.
591 jobs, half in hotels, pubs and restaurants
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 (390). 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 Woolacombe (employees and working owners, ONS Business Register and Employment Survey 2024).
Jobless claims in the North Devon council area are below England and Wales’ rate
North Devon’s rate was about 1.8% in 2019, peaked at 5.9% in May 2020 and has averaged 2.9% 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 North Devon, which Nomis publishes monthly; the figures above the line are for Woolacombe’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).
Woolacombe fills up on a working day: 19% more workers
327 residents were in work at the 2021 Census; 390 people worked in Woolacombe.
31% of residents who travel to a workplace stay in the village; 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 village or from home.
Woolacombe’s workers come from Ilfracombe to Barnstaple
- Countryside60
- Ilfracombe47
- Barnstaple29
- Braunton15
- Chambercombe10
- Chivenor and Wrafton5
- Fremington4
- Croyde4
- Bideford3
- Willand2
Ilfracombe, 4 miles away, sends 47 people, more than any other town; in all, 50% of the people who work in Woolacombe live outside it. Going the other way, Barnstaple is the biggest single destination (44).
The ten places that send the most workers into Woolacombe, and the ten where its residents most often work (Census 2021, by home and workplace). Line width is the number of people.
How much households earn in Woolacombe: £61,140
Higher than 73% of UK towns of 2,500+; the typical town is £52,385. The whole council area of North Devon averages £47,337.
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).
37% of people travelling to work from Woolacombe walk, cycle or take the bus or train
Median journey 7.1 km; typical UK town 8.4 km.
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).
Retirement is the main occupation for 32% of adults in Woolacombe
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.
Next to Woolacombe: how nearby places compare
| Town | People | Jobs | Work in own town | Claimants | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Woolacombe | 699 | 591 | 31% | 1.9% | — |
| Ilfracombe | 9,199 | 3,411 | 44% | 4.7% | D− |
| Braunton | 6,610 | 2,141 | 21% | 2% | B− |
| Chambercombe | 1,502 | 347 | 5% | 2.5% | D |
| Chivenor and Wrafton | 1,953 | 1,259 | 18% | 2.6% | C+ |
| Fremington | 5,229 | 700 | 6% | 2.3% | C |
| Combe Martin | 2,707 | 581 | 15% | 3.6% | D |
| Appledore | 1,711 | 703 | 11% | 2.4% | D |
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. Woolacombe 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 North Devon as a whole; the claimant rate elsewhere on this page is Woolacombe’s built-up area, from small areas.
Questions about work in Woolacombe
Where do people in Woolacombe work?
At the 2021 Census, 31% of Woolacombe’s residents who travelled to work worked in the village itself; the most common other places were Barnstaple (44), Ilfracombe (25) and Braunton (13). 41% 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 Woolacombe?
196 people who lived elsewhere worked in Woolacombe at the 2021 Census, 50% of its 390 workers. The most came from Ilfracombe (47), Barnstaple (29) and Braunton (15). 131 residents travelled out the other way.
How many jobs are there in Woolacombe?
About 590 jobs (employees and working owners) were based in Woolacombe in 2024, on ONS’s Business Register and Employment Survey: 1.8 for every resident in work, against 0.7 in the typical UK town. The biggest kinds of work are restaurants, cafés and pubs (about 130), hotels and holiday accommodation (about 100) and shops (about 50).
How do people in Woolacombe get to work?
62% of commuters go by car or van, 35% walk, 2% cycle and 0% take the bus or train; 39% travel under 5 km. Census 2021, taken during lockdown.
What is the average household income in Woolacombe?
Mean household income before tax was £61,140 in the year to March 2023 (ONS), against £52,385 in the typical UK town.
How does Woolacombe compare with Plymouth for jobs?
Woolacombe has 1.8 jobs per working resident against Plymouth’s 1, a 1.9% claimant rate against 3.6%, and mean household income of £61,140 against £48,927.
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.