Photo: P.g.champion · CC BY 2.0 ukHouseholds in Ealing earn more than those in 91% of UK towns
6.8% of working-age residents claim jobless benefits, against 2.7% in the typical UK town. Measured against other UK towns, jobs and pay in Ealing rate B, #21 of 33 in London. The working day takes 57,354 residents elsewhere, and 44,447 people travel in.
Where Ealing stands out on work
Fewer jobs than working residents
130,144 jobs are based in Ealing for 174,783 working residents; the typical UK town has 0.7 jobs per resident in work. Shops, education and hospitals and health care make up 28% 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 Ealing: B
With four measures combined, it comes out better than 56% of UK towns: #21 of 33 in London.
Its strongest measure is getting to jobs without a car; its weakest, the claimant rate.
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.
Jobless claims in the Ealing council area are above England and Wales’ rate
Ealing’s rate was about 2.9% in 2019, peaked at 9.1% in March 2021 and has averaged 6.4% 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 Ealing, which Nomis publishes monthly; the figures above the line are for Ealing’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).
A commuter town: Ealing sends out more workers than it takes in
174,783 residents were in work at the 2021 Census; 161,144 people worked in Ealing.
32% of residents who travel to a workplace stay in the borough; 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 borough or from home.
Ealing’s commuters work from Hillingdon to Camden
- Hillingdon7,889
- Brent7,081
- Hounslow6,009
- Harrow3,621
- Hammersmith and Fulham1,600
- Barnet1,137
- Slough996
- Richmond upon Thames814
- Wandsworth683
- Westminster676
- Hillingdon9,048
- Hounslow7,091
- Westminster6,038
- Hammersmith and Fulham5,793
- Brent5,646
- Kensington and Chelsea3,681
- Camden2,195
- Harrow2,108
- Richmond upon Thames1,519
- City of London1,217
68% of residents who travel to a workplace work outside Ealing; Hillingdon takes the most (9,048). Coming the other way, Hillingdon sends the most (7,889).
The ten places that send the most workers into Ealing, and the ten where its residents most often work (Census 2021, by home and workplace). Line width is the number of people.
130,144 jobs, 11% in retail
0.7 for every working resident, the same as the typical UK town.
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 (161,144). 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 Ealing (employees and working owners, ONS Business Register and Employment Survey 2024).
Household income in Ealing averages £71,464
The whole council area of Ealing averages £71,541.
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).
In Ealing, household incomes run from £54K to £101K from one neighbourhood to the next
Mean household income before tax in each of the 41 neighbourhoods (MSOAs) mostly inside the borough: the highest is 1.9 times the lowest.
Each dot is a neighbourhood (MSOA, about 8,000 people) mostly inside Ealing; 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.
37% of people travelling to work from Ealing walk, cycle or take the bus or train
Median journey 6.4 km; typical UK town 8.4 km.
42% of journeys to work are under 5 km (3 miles), against 45% across England’s towns, and 3% are 30 km or more. Ealing 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).
How Ealing spends its days: 59% of adults in work
Compared with England’s towns, 13% 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.
Out of 34 UK towns of 257,000 to 496,000, Ealing comes 11th on jobs and income
| # | Town | People | Jobs per worker | Work in own town | Claimants | Income | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Bromley London | 325,469 | 0.7 | 40% | 3.5% | £87K | A− |
| 2 | Wandsworth London | 326,725 | 0.7 | 26% | 4.1% | £85K | A− |
| 3 | Harrow London | 260,534 | 0.6 | 25% | 4.9% | £78K | B+ |
| … | |||||||
| 9 | Lambeth London | 317,108 | 0.9 | 22% | 6.1% | £74K | B |
| 10 | Southwark London | 307,076 | 1.8 | 25% | 5.7% | £74K | B |
| 11 | Ealing London | 367,271 | 0.7 | 32% | 6.8% | £71K | B |
| 12 | Greenwich London | 288,117 | 0.7 | 30% | 5.9% | £73K | B |
| 13 | Croydon London | 389,242 | 0.7 | 37% | 6.5% | £74K | B |
| … | |||||||
| 34 | Stoke-on-Trent Staffordshire | 260,560 | 1.1 | 64% | 5.5% | £41K | 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 Ealing, and others in London.
Work in and around Ealing
| Town | People | Jobs | Work in own town | Claimants | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ealing | 367,271 | 130,144 | 32% | 6.8% | B |
| Brent | 340,611 | 130,117 | 30% | 7.4% | B− |
| Hounslow | 286,591 | 162,335 | 32% | 5.2% | B |
| Hillingdon | 307,089 | 196,930 | 44% | 5.3% | B |
| Harrow | 260,534 | 74,509 | 25% | 4.9% | B+ |
| Richmond upon Thames | 192,888 | 82,134 | 35% | 2.5% | A |
| Hammersmith and Fulham | 182,187 | 147,439 | 27% | 4.9% | B |
| Kensington and Chelsea | 143,348 | 127,825 | 27% | 3.4% | B+ |
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. Ealing 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 Ealing as a whole; the claimant rate elsewhere on this page is Ealing’s built-up area, from small areas.
Questions about work in Ealing
Where do people in Ealing work?
At the 2021 Census, 32% of Ealing’s residents who travelled to work worked in the borough itself; the most common other places were Hillingdon (9,048), Hounslow (7,091) and Westminster (6,038). 52% 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 Ealing?
44,447 people who lived elsewhere worked in Ealing at the 2021 Census, 28% of its 161,144 workers. The most came from Hillingdon (7,889), Brent (7,081) and Hounslow (6,009). 57,354 residents travelled out the other way.
How many jobs are there in Ealing?
About 130,150 jobs (employees and working owners) were based in Ealing in 2024, on ONS’s Business Register and Employment Survey: 0.7 for every resident in work, against 0.7 in the typical UK town. The biggest kinds of work are shops (about 14,450), education (about 11,750) and hospitals and health care (about 9,380).
Is Ealing a good place to find work?
Ealing earns a B for jobs and income, better than 56% of UK towns on household income, the claimant rate, employment deprivation and access to jobs together. Mean household income £71,464; 6.8% of 16 to 64s claim unemployment benefits.
How do people in Ealing get to work?
41% of commuters go by car or van, 10% walk, 4% cycle and 22% take the bus or train; 42% travel under 5 km. Census 2021, taken during lockdown.
What is the average household income in Ealing?
Mean household income before tax was £71,464 in the year to March 2023 (ONS), against £52,385 in the typical UK town. By neighbourhood it runs from £53,974 in Southall Park to £100,632 in Northfields.
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.