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High Street, RingsteadPhoto: Hugh Venables · CC BY-SA 2.0
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Work & commute in Ringstead · ONS, DWP · claims to August 2026

Jobs and the daily commute in Ringstead

Short trips are common: 25% of commuters travel less than 3 miles. On a working day 58 residents travel out to work; 34 people arrive. The Jobs & income Grade leaves out Ringstead.

What stands out · In brief

Jobs and income in Ringstead: what the figures say

More jobs than the typical town

110 jobs are based in Ringstead for 120 working residents; the typical UK town has 0.7 jobs per resident in work. Restaurants, cafés and pubs, shops and hotels and holiday accommodation make up 53% of them. Jobs based here ↓

Longer journeys to work

Against 45% across England’s towns. 10% of commuters walk to work (11% across England’s towns). Getting to work ↓

Written from the data on this page: ONS Census 2021 and BRES, DWP claimant counts via Nomis, and ONS household income.

Jobs based here

110 jobs, 38% in hotels, pubs and restaurants

0.9 for every working resident; the typical UK town has 0.7.

Share of jobs by industry England’s towns
Hotels, pubs and restaurants38%
Retail17%
Arts, leisure and other services12%
Education9%
Health and social care5%
Professional, scientific and technical4%
Business administration and support3%
Construction2%
Property2%
Public administration and defence2%

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 (96). 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 Ringstead (employees and working owners, ONS Business Register and Employment Survey 2024).

Getting to work

Ringstead commutes on foot, by bike or bus for 12% of trips

Median journey 20.3 km; typical UK town 8.4 km.

Drive79%Norfolk 71% · England 64%
Passenger4%Norfolk 6% · England 6%
Walk10%Norfolk 12% · England 11%
Cycle1%Norfolk 4% · England 3%
Bus1%Norfolk 3% · England 6%
Train0%Norfolk 1% · England 3%
Other6%Norfolk 3% · England 6%
RingsteadNorfolk’s townsEngland’s towns
How far they travel England’s towns
10%
Under 2 km
15%
2–5 km
10%
5–10 km
13%
10–20 km
28%
20–30 km
4%
30–40 km
4%
40–60 km
13%
60 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).

The daily tide

More workers leave Ringstead each day than arrive

120 residents were in work at the 2021 Census; 96 people worked in Ringstead.

Live in Ringstead120 in work
58755
Work in Ringstead96 people
34755
Commute in · 34Commute out · 58Live and work here · 7At home or no fixed place · 55

For every person who comes in to work, about 2 residents travel out. 11% 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.

On the map

Most of Ringstead’s commuters who leave work in King's Lynn and the places around

Snettisham: 5 commute inHeacham: 5 commute inSnettishamHeachamKing's Lynn: 13 residents work thereKing's LynnRingstead5 miles
Grey dots: where people live (Census 2021). Places drawn centre to centre; flows under 5 people are listed, not drawn.

89% of residents who travel to a workplace work outside Ringstead; King's Lynn takes the most (13). Coming the other way, Snettisham sends the most (5).

The ten places that send the most workers into Ringstead, and the ten where its residents most often work (Census 2021, by home and workplace). Line width is the number of people.

Household income

The average household in Ringstead has £42,447 a year

Higher than 14% of UK towns of 2,500+; the typical town is £52,385. The whole council area of King's Lynn and West Norfolk averages £47,345.

Ringstead £42KTypical UK town £52K
£40K£45K£50K£55K

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).

Benefits over time

Jobless claims in the King's Lynn and West Norfolk council area have run below England and Wales every month since 2015

0%2%4%6%201520172019202120232025First lockdownCensus dayEngland & Wales 4%East 3.3%King's Lynn and… 3%
King's Lynn and West Norfolk (council area)EastEngland and Wales

King's Lynn and West Norfolk’s rate was about 1.7% in 2019, peaked at 5.3% in May 2020 and has averaged 3% 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.

Claimant rate
2.6%
of 16 to 64s in the built-up area, January to August 2026
4 people in August 2026 · typical UK town 2.7%
Employment deprivation
8.1%
of 18 to 66s out of work through unemployment, sickness, disability or caring
IoD 2025
Income deprivation
12%
of residents in low-income households on means-tested benefits
In the most deprived tenth
0%
of residents live in England’s most employment-deprived 10% of areas

The chart is the whole council area of King's Lynn and West Norfolk, which Nomis publishes monthly; the figures above the line are for Ringstead’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 residents do

In Ringstead, 38% of adults are retired

Ringstead
47%38%7%
England’s towns
56%21%
In workStudents in workUnemployedStudentsRetiredLong-term sick or disabledLooking after home or familyOther

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.

Neighbours

Ringstead and its neighbours: work and income

TownPeopleJobsWork in own townClaimantsGrade
Ringstead29111011%2.6%—
Hunstanton4,2301,80128%3.8%D−
Heacham3,9781,07120%3%D
Snettisham2,7095287%2.9%D
Dersingham4,75377512%1.9%C

Jobs based in each place, commuters who stay in their own town, and the claimant rate.

How to read these numbers

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. Ringstead 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 King's Lynn and West Norfolk as a whole; the claimant rate elsewhere on this page is Ringstead’s built-up area, from small areas.

Questions about work in Ringstead

Where do people in Ringstead work?

At the 2021 Census, 11% of Ringstead’s residents who travelled to work worked in the village itself; the most common other places were King's Lynn (13), Norwich (4) and Hunstanton (4). 46% 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 Ringstead?

34 people who lived elsewhere worked in Ringstead at the 2021 Census, 35% of its 96 workers. The most came from Snettisham (5), Heacham (5) and Dersingham (3). 58 residents travelled out the other way.

How many jobs are there in Ringstead?

About 110 jobs (employees and working owners) were based in Ringstead 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.

How do people in Ringstead get to work?

82% of commuters go by car or van, 10% walk, 1% cycle and 1% take the bus or train; 25% travel under 5 km. Census 2021, taken during lockdown.

What is the average household income in Ringstead?

Mean household income before tax was £42,447 in the year to March 2023 (ONS), against £52,385 in the typical UK town.

How does Ringstead compare with Norwich for jobs?

Ringstead has 0.9 jobs per working resident against Norwich’s 1.3, a 2.6% claimant rate against 3.8%, and mean household income of £42,447 against £49,951.

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.