Photo: Malc McDonald · CC BY-SA 2.0Household incomes in Dorking are higher than in 91% of UK towns
The journey to work is shorter than 3 miles for 37% of commuters. Measured against other UK towns, jobs and pay in Dorking rate A, #41 of 65 in Surrey.
Where Dorking stands out on work
A local job centre
11,117 jobs are based in Dorking for 8,886 working residents; the typical UK town has 0.7 jobs per resident in work. Cleaning and grounds maintenance, shops and education make up 24% of them. Jobs based here ↓
As many come in to work as leave
3,016 people come in to work and 2,588 residents go out, so Dorking gains about 428 workers a day. Great Bookham and Fetcham sends the most (149). The daily tide ↓
Written from the data on this page: ONS Census 2021 and BRES, DWP claimant counts via Nomis, and ONS household income.
Dorking grades A for jobs and income
Its four measures together rank it better than 85% of UK towns: #41 of 65 in Surrey.
Its strongest measure is household income; 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.
11,117 jobs, 15% in business administration and support
1.3 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 (9,300). 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 Dorking (employees and working owners, ONS Business Register and Employment Survey 2024).
Dorking keeps its workforce on a working day
8,886 residents were in work at the 2021 Census; 9,300 people worked in Dorking.
31% 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.
Dorking’s workers come from Great Bookham and Fetcham to Horsham
- Countryside245
- Great Bookham and Fetcham149
- Horsham146
- Crawley146
- Redhill138
- Westcott113
- Ashtead110
- Reigate104
- Leatherhead104
- Tadworth and Epsom Downs93
- Countryside348
- Leatherhead173
- Reigate166
- Redhill125
- Epsom119
- Guildford105
- Great Bookham and Fetcham104
- Sutton92
- Crawley80
- Ashtead66
Great Bookham and Fetcham, 4 miles away, sends 149 people, more than any other town; in all, 32% of the people who work in Dorking live outside it. Going the other way, Leatherhead is the biggest single destination (173).
The ten places that send the most workers into Dorking, and the ten where its residents most often work (Census 2021, by home and workplace). Line width is the number of people.
Mean household income: £71,610 a year
The whole council area of Mole Valley averages £71,069.
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).
Incomes inside Dorking run from £66K to £77K
Mean household income before tax in each of the 3 neighbourhoods (MSOAs) mostly inside the town: the highest is 1.2 times the lowest.
Each dot is a neighbourhood (MSOA, about 8,000 people) mostly inside Dorking; 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.
How Dorking gets to work: 25% without a car
Median journey 8.7 km; typical UK town 8.4 km.
Dorking 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).
Jobless claims in the Mole Valley council area have run below England and Wales every month since 2015
Mole Valley’s rate was about 0.8% in 2019, peaked at 3.7% in May 2020 and has averaged 1.9% 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 Mole Valley, which Nomis publishes monthly; the figures above the line are for Dorking’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 adults in Dorking do: 62% are in work
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.
For jobs and income, Dorking is 53rd of 352 UK towns of 12,000 to 24,000
| # | 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 | Chorleywood Hertfordshire | 12,632 | 0.5 | 8% | 1.5% | £86K | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 10 | Worcester Park and Stoneleigh Surrey | 15,851 | 0.4 | 5% | 2.1% | £73K | A+ |
| 11 | Great Bookham and Fetcham Surrey | 21,655 | 0.5 | 19% | 1.3% | £77K | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 51 | Taverham and Drayton Norfolk | 14,989 | 0.4 | 14% | 1.8% | £62K | A |
| 52 | Dronfield Derbyshire | 21,161 | 0.7 | 19% | 1.6% | £54K | A |
| 53 | Dorking Surrey | 17,463 | 1.3 | 31% | 2.4% | £72K | A |
| 54 | Ware Hertfordshire | 19,631 | 1 | 25% | 2.2% | £64K | A− |
| 55 | Kidlington Oxfordshire | 14,640 | 1.4 | 19% | 2% | £57K | A− |
| … | |||||||
| 352 | 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 Dorking, and others in Surrey.
How the places next to Dorking compare on work
| Town | People | Jobs | Work in own town | Claimants | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dorking | 17,463 | 11,117 | 31% | 2.4% | A |
| Westcott | 2,275 | 450 | 5% | 2.5% | A− |
| Brockham | 2,206 | 592 | 5% | 1.4% | A |
| Box Hill | 1,271 | 183 | 1% | 3% | B− |
| Beare Green | 1,940 | 350 | 4% | 2% | B |
| Great Bookham and Fetcham | 21,655 | 4,922 | 19% | 1.3% | A+ |
| Leatherhead | 11,482 | 16,845 | 21% | 3.1% | B |
| Gomshall | 1,378 | 530 | 2% | 1.8% | A− |
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. Dorking 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 Mole Valley as a whole; the claimant rate elsewhere on this page is Dorking’s built-up area, from small areas.
Questions about work in Dorking
Where do people in Dorking work?
At the 2021 Census, 31% of Dorking’s residents who travelled to work worked in the town itself; the most common other places were Leatherhead (173), Reigate (166) and Redhill (125). 57% 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 Dorking?
3,016 people who lived elsewhere worked in Dorking at the 2021 Census, 32% of its 9,300 workers. The most came from Great Bookham and Fetcham (149), Horsham (146) and Crawley (146). 2,588 residents travelled out the other way.
How many jobs are there in Dorking?
About 11,100 jobs (employees and working owners) were based in Dorking in 2024, on ONS’s Business Register and Employment Survey: 1.3 for every resident in work, against 0.7 in the typical UK town. The biggest kinds of work are cleaning and grounds maintenance (about 930), shops (about 870) and education (about 750).
Is Dorking a good place to find work?
Dorking earns an A for jobs and income, better than 85% of UK towns on household income, the claimant rate, employment deprivation and access to jobs together. Mean household income £71,610; 2.4% of 16 to 64s claim unemployment benefits.
How do people in Dorking get to work?
72% of commuters go by car or van, 17% walk, 2% cycle and 7% take the bus or train; 37% travel under 5 km. Census 2021, taken during lockdown.
What is the average household income in Dorking?
Mean household income before tax was £71,610 in the year to March 2023 (ONS), against £52,385 in the typical UK town. By neighbourhood it runs from £66,427 in Holmwoods to £77,396 in Dorking South.
How does Dorking compare with Guildford for jobs?
Dorking has 1.3 jobs per working resident against Guildford’s 1.6, a 2.4% claimant rate against 2.2%, and mean household income of £71,610 against £69,856.
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.