Photo: David Dixon · CC BY-SA 2.0More people claim jobless benefits in Wick than in 64% of UK towns
The claimant rate is 2.8% of working-age residents (the typical UK town: 2.7%). Under 3 miles is the trip to work for 71% of commuters. Jobs and income go ungraded in Wick.
What stands out about work in Wick
More jobs than the typical town
2,913 jobs are based in Wick for 3,179 working residents; the typical UK town has 0.7 jobs per resident in work. Hospitals and health care, public administration and defence and shops make up 44% of them. Jobs based here ↓
Short journeys to work
Against 44% across Scotland’s towns. 20% of commuters walk to work, about 1.8 times the share across Scotland’s towns. Getting to work ↓
Written from the data on this page: Scotland’s Census 2022, ONS BRES and DWP claimant counts via Nomis.
2,913 jobs, 31% in health and social care
0.9 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 (3,081). Data zones and intermediate zones are shared out to the town by where their residents live (Scotland’s Census 2022 has no workplace counts for areas small enough to place jobs more exactly); kinds of work are BRES industry divisions (SIC 2007), rounded. Scotland’s towns: all jobs in its towns.
Jobs at workplaces in Wick (employees and working owners, ONS Business Register and Employment Survey 2024).
27% of people travelling to work from Wick walk, cycle or take the bus or train
Median journey 1.9 km; typical UK town 8.4 km.
Wick grades A for walkability: the share of commuters who walk, cycle or take public transport, against UK towns.
Scotland’s Census 2022, UV701 (method of travel) and UV703 (distance, straight line from home to workplace), output areas summed. Census day was 20 March 2022, a year after England and Wales’s lockdown census, so compare with Scotland’s towns rather than England’s.
How residents who travel to work get there, and how far they go (Scotland’s Census 2022, not counting those working mainly at home).
About as many people come in to work in Wick as leave
3,179 residents were in work at the 2022 Census; 3,081 people worked in Wick.
54% 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.
Wick’s commuters work from Thurso to Inverness
46% of residents who travel to a workplace work outside Wick; Thurso takes the most (88). Coming the other way, Thurso sends the most (111).
The ten places that send the most workers into Wick, and the ten where its residents most often work (Scotland’s Census 2022, by home and workplace). Line width is the number of people.
Jobless claims in the Highland council area are below Scotland’s rate
Highland’s rate was about 2.5% in 2019, peaked at 5.9% in May 2020 and has averaged 2.3% in 2026, against 3.1% across Scotland and 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 Highland, which Nomis publishes monthly; the figures above the line are for Wick’s locality. Claimant count: people claiming Jobseeker’s Allowance, or Universal Credit while required to look for work. Employment and income deprivation are from the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation 2020 (benefit records from 2017 to 2019, so before the pandemic and older than the claimant figures): its 2011 data zones are shared out to the town by where their residents live. The “most deprived tenth” compares areas within Scotland 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).
Most of Wick works: 57% of adults are in work
Compared with Scotland’s towns, 4% are full-time students (against 9%).
Scotland’s Census 2022, tables UV601 (economic activity) and UV606 (occupation), output areas summed to the locality. Scotland’s towns: everyone living in its towns.
Everyone 16 and over, by what they were doing the week before the 2022 Census, and the jobs of those in work.
What this data can and can’t tell you
- The Census was a year later in Scotland. Scotland’s Census was taken on 20 March 2022, a year after England and Wales’s lockdown census, so more people were back at their workplaces. Commuting figures compare fairly with Scotland’s other towns, less so with England’s.
- Flows are by data zone. National Records of Scotland publishes where people live and work by data zone (about 800 residents), not by the smaller output areas England and Wales use. A zone that straddles a town’s edge is shared out by where its residents live, so the flows here are close, not exact.
- At home and no fixed place are one figure. NRS puts people who mainly work at home and people with no fixed workplace (drivers, builders, care workers on rounds) at their home address, so the two are counted together.
- Towns are localities. Wick here is NRS’s Census 2022 locality: the town as built, not its council area. A workplace outside every town counts as “outside any town”.
- 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. Data zones are shared out to towns by where their residents live.
- The benefits chart is the council area. Nomis publishes the claimant count monthly for councils back to 2013, so the line is Highland as a whole; the claimant rate elsewhere on this page is Wick’s locality, from small areas.
Questions about work in Wick
Where do people in Wick work?
At the 2022 Census, 54% of Wick’s residents who travelled to work worked in the town itself; the most common other places were Thurso (88), Inverness (31) and Aberdeen (5). 42% of working residents worked mainly at home or had no fixed workplace.
How many people commute into Wick?
807 people who lived elsewhere worked in Wick at the 2022 Census, 26% of its 3,081 workers. The most came from Thurso (111), Inverness (20) and Kirkwall (3). 824 residents travelled out the other way.
How many jobs are there in Wick?
About 2,910 jobs (employees and working owners) were based in Wick in 2024, on ONS’s Business Register and Employment Survey: 0.9 for every resident in work, against 0.7 in the typical UK town. The biggest kinds of work are hospitals and health care (about 550), public administration and defence (about 300) and shops (about 290).
How do people in Wick get to work?
70% of commuters go by car or van, 20% walk, 0% cycle and 6% take the bus or train; 71% travel under 5 km. Scotland’s Census 2022.
Why doesn’t Wick have a Jobs & income Grade?
The grade needs three of four measures: household income, the claimant rate, employment deprivation and access to jobs. Scotland publishes household income only for council areas, its deprivation index (SIMD 2020) uses benefit records from before the pandemic rather than England’s 2025 index, and the job-access measure covers England and Wales only, so Scottish towns have the claimant rate alone.
Sources: NRS, Scotland’s Census 2022 origin-destination Table 5a (location of usual residence and place of work, 2022 data zones), shared to the Census 2022 locality · Scotland’s Census 2022 tables UV601 (economic activity), UV606 (occupation), UV701 (method of travel) and UV703 (distance) · ONS Business Register and Employment Survey via Nomis (open access), 2022 data zones and intermediate zones, by industry division · DWP claimant count via Nomis (towns January to August 2026; councils, Scotland and England and Wales monthly since January 2015) · Scottish Government, Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation 2020v2, indicators and domain deciles · 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.