Photo: Ian Capper · CC BY-SA 2.0How Leigh works: jobs, income and commuting
The working day brings 86 people in, filling the village. Leigh isn’t graded for jobs and income. 1.2% of people of working age are on jobless benefits, against 2.7% in the typical UK town.
The work numbers behind Leigh
Fewer jobs than working residents
109 jobs are based in Leigh for 133 working residents; the typical UK town has 0.7 jobs per resident in work. Hospitals and health care, shops and building trades make up 45% 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 Mole Valley 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.
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 Leigh’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 working day adds 32% to the people at work in Leigh
133 residents were in work at the 2021 Census; 176 people worked in Leigh.
For every resident who leaves Leigh for work, about 2 people come in. 2% 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.
Leigh’s workers come from Crawley to Croydon
Crawley, 7 miles away, sends 10 people, more than any other town; in all, 49% of the people who work in Leigh live outside it. Going the other way, Great Bookham and Fetcham is the biggest single destination (5).
The ten places that send the most workers into Leigh, and the ten where its residents most often work (Census 2021, by home and workplace). Line width is the number of people.
109 jobs, 23% in health and social care
0.8 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 (176). 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 Leigh (employees and working owners, ONS Business Register and Employment Survey 2024).
Before tax, households in Leigh average £62,207
Higher than 75% of UK towns of 2,500+; the typical town is £52,385. 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).
10% of Leigh’s commuters walk, cycle, or take the bus or train
Median journey 13.1 km; typical UK town 8.4 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).
62% of people 16 and over in Leigh 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.
Work in the places around Leigh
| Town | People | Jobs | Work in own town | Claimants | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Leigh | 265 | 109 | 2% | 1.2% | — |
| Brockham | 2,206 | 592 | 5% | 1.4% | A |
| Reigate | 23,774 | 15,951 | 22% | 1.8% | A+ |
| Box Hill | 1,271 | 183 | 1% | 3% | B− |
| Beare Green | 1,940 | 350 | 4% | 2% | B |
| Dorking | 17,463 | 11,117 | 31% | 2.4% | A |
| Salfords | 1,873 | 2,849 | 5% | 2.2% | A |
| Redhill | 32,516 | 20,525 | 33% | 2.6% | 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. Leigh 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 Leigh’s built-up area, from small areas.
Questions about work in Leigh
Where do people in Leigh work?
At the 2021 Census, 2% of Leigh’s residents who travelled to work worked in the village itself; the most common other places were Great Bookham and Fetcham (5), Norton Fitzwarren (3) and Dorking (2). 67% 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 Leigh?
86 people who lived elsewhere worked in Leigh at the 2021 Census, 49% of its 176 workers. The most came from Crawley (10), Croydon (8) and Redhill (7). 43 residents travelled out the other way.
How many jobs are there in Leigh?
About 110 jobs (employees and working owners) were based in Leigh in 2024, on ONS’s Business Register and Employment Survey: 0.8 for every resident in work, against 0.7 in the typical UK town.
How do people in Leigh get to work?
86% of commuters go by car or van, 7% walk, 1% cycle and 1% take the bus or train. Census 2021, taken during lockdown.
What is the average household income in Leigh?
Mean household income before tax was £62,207 in the year to March 2023 (ONS), against £52,385 in the typical UK town.
How does Leigh compare with Guildford for jobs?
Leigh has 0.8 jobs per working resident against Guildford’s 1.6, a 1.2% claimant rate against 2.2%, and mean household income of £62,207 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.