Photo: Neil Owen · CC BY-SA 2.0Downside draws workers in: 49 jobs for every resident in work
1.6% of people of working age are on jobless benefits, against 2.7% in the typical UK town. The working day brings 1,216 people in, filling the village. Downside isn’t graded for jobs and income.
The work figures that set Downside apart
A local job centre
2,724 jobs are based in Downside for 56 working residents; the typical UK town has 0.7 jobs per resident in work. Airlines, warehousing and logistics and restaurants, cafés and pubs make up 53% 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. Claims across the North Somerset council area have run below the national rate every month since 2015. Benefits over time ↓
Written from the data on this page: ONS Census 2021 and BRES, DWP claimant counts via Nomis, and ONS household income.
2,724 jobs, 45% in transport and storage
48.6 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 (1,239). 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 Downside (employees and working owners, ONS Business Register and Employment Survey 2024).
Jobless claims in the North Somerset council area have run below England and Wales every month since 2015
North Somerset’s rate was about 2% in 2019, peaked at 4.9% in May 2020 and has averaged 2.5% 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 Somerset, which Nomis publishes monthly; the figures above the line are for Downside’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).
Downside’s workers come from Bristol to Weston-super-Mare
- Bristol358
- Weston-super-Mare121
- Countryside95
- Kingswood and Fishponds76
- Portishead41
- Clevedon36
- Nailsea26
- Newport19
- Cardiff16
- Cheddar16
Bristol, 7 miles away, sends 358 people, more than any other town; in all, 98% of the people who work in Downside live outside it. Going the other way, Bristol is the biggest single destination (11).
The ten places that send the most workers into Downside, and the ten where its residents most often work (Census 2021, by home and workplace). Line width is the number of people.
An average of £62,926 a year per household in Downside
Higher than 76% of UK towns of 2,500+; the typical town is £52,385. The whole council area of North Somerset averages £56,045.
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).
Next to Downside: how nearby places compare
| Town | People | Jobs | Work in own town | Claimants | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Downside | 127 | 2,724 | — | 1.6% | — |
| Backwell | 4,347 | 1,658 | 9% | 1% | A+ |
| Wrington | 1,997 | 843 | 11% | 2% | B |
| Long Ashton | 5,184 | 1,219 | 9% | 1.4% | A+ |
| Nailsea | 15,919 | 4,442 | 27% | 1.8% | A |
| Chew Magna | 1,249 | 703 | 8% | 1.6% | A− |
| Blagdon | 1,056 | 1,062 | 8% | 1.5% | B+ |
| Congresbury | 2,795 | 1,202 | 11% | 2% | 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. Downside 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 Somerset as a whole; the claimant rate elsewhere on this page is Downside’s built-up area, from small areas.
Questions about work in Downside
How many people commute into Downside?
1,216 people who lived elsewhere worked in Downside at the 2021 Census, 98% of its 1,239 workers. The most came from Bristol (358), Weston-super-Mare (121) and Kingswood and Fishponds (76). 32 residents travelled out the other way.
How many jobs are there in Downside?
About 2,720 jobs (employees and working owners) were based in Downside in 2024, on ONS’s Business Register and Employment Survey: 48.6 for every resident in work, against 0.7 in the typical UK town. The biggest kinds of work are airlines (about 530), warehousing and logistics (about 400) and restaurants, cafés and pubs (about 180).
What is the average household income in Downside?
Mean household income before tax was £62,926 in the year to March 2023 (ONS), against £52,385 in the typical UK town.
How does Downside compare with Bath for jobs?
Downside has 48.6 jobs per working resident against Bath’s 1.5, a 1.6% claimant rate against 2.1%, and mean household income of £62,926 against £60,909.
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.