Photo: Gareth James · CC BY-SA 2.0Households in Ebbw Vale earn less than those in 96% of UK towns
For 47% of residents who travel to work, the journey is under 3 miles. Measured against other UK towns, jobs and pay in Ebbw Vale rate D−, #27 of 38 in Gwent. Jobless benefit claims cover 3.8% of working-age residents; the typical UK town’s rate is 2.7%.
Ebbw Vale at work: what stands out
More jobs than the typical town
8,395 jobs are based in Ebbw Vale for 8,541 working residents; the typical UK town has 0.7 jobs per resident in work. Public administration and defence, shops and education make up 32% of them. Jobs based here ↓
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.
The Jobs & income grade for Ebbw Vale: D−
Better than 5% of UK towns once its four measures are combined: #27 of 38 in Gwent.
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.
8,395 jobs, one in four in manufacturing
1 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 (8,665). 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 Ebbw Vale (employees and working owners, ONS Business Register and Employment Survey 2024).
Jobless claims in the Blaenau Gwent council area are below England and Wales’ rate
Blaenau Gwent’s rate was about 3.9% in 2019, peaked at 7.5% in May 2020 and has averaged 3.9% 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 Blaenau Gwent, which Nomis publishes monthly; the figures above the line are for Ebbw Vale’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).
As many come into Ebbw Vale to work as leave
8,541 residents were in work at the 2021 Census; 8,665 people worked in Ebbw Vale.
32% 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.
Ebbw Vale’s workers come from Tredegar to Merthyr Tydfil
- Tredegar845
- Merthyr Tydfil443
- Abertillery316
- Countryside261
- Brynmawr233
- Cwm216
- Nantyglo195
- Blaina148
- Pontypool94
- Rhymney80
- Countryside484
- Tredegar464
- Abergavenny332
- Merthyr Tydfil292
- Brynmawr223
- Cwmbrân214
- Newport179
- Nantyglo173
- Cardiff153
- Abertillery147
Tredegar, 1 miles away, sends 845 people, more than any other town; in all, 49% of the people who work in Ebbw Vale live outside it. Going the other way, Tredegar is the biggest single destination (464).
The ten places that send the most workers into Ebbw Vale, and the ten where its residents most often work (Census 2021, by home and workplace). Line width is the number of people.
Income in Ebbw Vale: £39,141 per household a year
Higher than 5% of UK towns of 2,500+; the typical town is £52,385. The whole council area of Blaenau Gwent averages £37,865.
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).
Where in Ebbw Vale incomes are highest and lowest: £39K to £40K
Mean household income before tax in each of the 3 neighbourhoods (MSOAs) mostly inside the town: the highest is 1 times the lowest.
Each dot is a neighbourhood (MSOA, about 8,000 people) mostly inside Ebbw Vale; 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: 10% of Ebbw Vale’s commuters
Median journey 6.6 km; typical UK town 8.4 km.
Ebbw Vale 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).
In work, studying or retired: 53% of Ebbw Vale’s adults work
Compared with Wales’ towns, 8% are long-term sick or disabled (against 6%).
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.
UK towns of 14,000 to 27,000, and where Ebbw Vale sits
| # | 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+ |
| … | |||||||
| 257 | Risca Gwent | 15,194 | 0.5 | 16% | 3.2% | £42K | C− |
| … | |||||||
| 300 | Harwich Essex | 20,219 | 0.5 | 35% | 4.8% | £47K | D |
| 301 | Rhyl Clwyd | 26,982 | 0.8 | 31% | 6.3% | £39K | D |
| 302 | Ebbw Vale Gwent | 19,635 | 1 | 32% | 3.8% | £39K | D− |
| 303 | Penzance Cornwall | 14,957 | 1.1 | 35% | 5.4% | £38K | D− |
| 304 | Gainsborough Lincolnshire | 21,899 | 0.9 | 51% | 6.5% | £41K | D− |
| 305 | Tredegar Gwent | 14,534 | 0.7 | 22% | 3.8% | £38K | D− |
| … | |||||||
| 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 Ebbw Vale, and others in Gwent.
Ebbw Vale and its neighbours: work and income
| Town | People | Jobs | Work in own town | Claimants | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ebbw Vale | 19,635 | 8,395 | 32% | 3.8% | D− |
| Tredegar | 14,534 | 4,204 | 22% | 3.8% | D− |
| Brynmawr | 5,250 | 1,510 | 11% | 3.8% | D− |
| Nantyglo | 4,548 | 975 | 7% | 4.3% | D− |
| Blaina | 4,553 | 925 | 8% | 3.4% | D− |
| Cwm | 2,507 | 325 | 5% | 3.6% | D− |
| Abertysswg | 1,424 | 35 | 2% | 4% | D− |
| Rhymney | 4,998 | 1,246 | 17% | 5.5% | 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. Ebbw Vale 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 Blaenau Gwent as a whole; the claimant rate elsewhere on this page is Ebbw Vale’s built-up area, from small areas.
Questions about work in Ebbw Vale
Where do people in Ebbw Vale work?
At the 2021 Census, 32% of Ebbw Vale’s residents who travelled to work worked in the town itself; the most common other places were Tredegar (464), Abergavenny (332) and Merthyr Tydfil (292). 28% 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 Ebbw Vale?
4,286 people who lived elsewhere worked in Ebbw Vale at the 2021 Census, 49% of its 8,665 workers. The most came from Tredegar (845), Merthyr Tydfil (443) and Abertillery (316). 4,159 residents travelled out the other way.
How many jobs are there in Ebbw Vale?
About 8,400 jobs (employees and working owners) were based in Ebbw Vale in 2024, on ONS’s Business Register and Employment Survey: 1 for every resident in work, against 0.7 in the typical UK town. The biggest kinds of work are public administration and defence (about 970), shops (about 920) and education (about 870).
Is Ebbw Vale a good place to find work?
Ebbw Vale earns a D− for jobs and income, better than 5% of UK towns on household income, the claimant rate, employment deprivation and access to jobs together. Mean household income £39,141; 3.8% of 16 to 64s claim unemployment benefits.
How do people in Ebbw Vale get to work?
88% of commuters go by car or van, 8% walk, 0% cycle and 2% take the bus or train; 47% travel under 5 km. Census 2021, taken during lockdown.
What is the average household income in Ebbw Vale?
Mean household income before tax was £39,141 in the year to March 2023 (ONS), against £52,385 in the typical UK town. By neighbourhood it runs from £38,772 in Rassau & Beaufort to £39,542 in Ebbw Vale North & Glyncoed.
How does Ebbw Vale compare with Newport for jobs?
Ebbw Vale has 1 jobs per working resident against Newport’s 0.9, a 3.8% claimant rate against 5.3%, and mean household income of £39,141 against £44,210.
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.