Photo: Robin Stott · CC BY-SA 2.0Households in Solihull earn more than those in 74% of UK towns
3% of working-age residents claim jobless benefits, against 2.7% in the typical UK town. Solihull grades B+ for jobs and income against UK towns, #7 of 35 in West Midlands. The working day brings 29,881 people in, so the city fills up.
Solihull and work: the main findings
A local job centre
69,450 jobs are based in Solihull for 50,199 working residents; the typical UK town has 0.7 jobs per resident in work. Car and vehicle making, shops and education make up 33% of them. Jobs based here ↓
The city fills up on a working day
29,881 people come in to work and 16,892 residents go out, so Solihull gains about 12,989 workers a day. Birmingham sends the most (16,622). The daily tide ↓
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 Solihull: B+
Better than 73% of UK towns across four measures: #7 of 35 in West Midlands.
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.
69,450 jobs, one in six in manufacturing
1.4 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 (63,062). 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 Solihull (employees and working owners, ONS Business Register and Employment Survey 2024).
A working day adds 26% to the people at work in Solihull
50,199 residents were in work at the 2021 Census; 63,062 people worked in Solihull.
For every resident who leaves Solihull for work, about 2 people come in. 32% of residents who travel to a workplace stay in the city; 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 city or from home.
Most of Solihull’s incomers live in Birmingham and the places around
- Birmingham16,622
- Coventry1,268
- Countryside890
- Knowle and Dorridge749
- Redditch727
- Royal Sutton Coldfield557
- Tamworth483
- Nuneaton367
- Dickens Heath346
- West Bromwich295
- Birmingham9,203
- Countryside1,675
- Coventry860
- Knowle and Dorridge711
- Redditch291
- Warwick269
- Coleshill181
- Royal Sutton Coldfield173
- West Bromwich130
- Stratford-upon-Avon128
Birmingham, 5 miles away, sends 16,622 people, more than any other town; in all, 47% of the people who work in Solihull live outside it. Going the other way, Birmingham is the biggest single destination (9,203).
The ten places that send the most workers into Solihull, and the ten where its residents most often work (Census 2021, by home and workplace). Line width is the number of people.
Income in Solihull: £62,275 per household a year
Higher than 75% of UK towns of 2,500+; the typical town is £52,385. The whole council area of Solihull averages £60,658.
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).
The richest and poorest parts of Solihull: £50K to £77K
Mean household income before tax in each of the 15 neighbourhoods (MSOAs) mostly inside the city: the highest is 1.5 times the lowest.
Each dot is a neighbourhood (MSOA, about 8,000 people) mostly inside Solihull; 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.
16% of people travelling to work from Solihull walk, cycle or take the bus or train
Median journey 6.6 km; typical UK town 8.4 km.
41% of journeys to work are under 5 km (3 miles), against 45% across England’s towns, and 5% are 30 km or more. Solihull grades B 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 Solihull council area are below England and Wales’ rate
Solihull’s rate was about 2.7% in 2019, peaked at 5.9% in September 2020 and has averaged 3.6% 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 Solihull, which Nomis publishes monthly; the figures above the line are for Solihull’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).
In Solihull, 57% of adults 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.
Ranked on jobs and income, Solihull is 10th among 72 UK towns of 75,000 to 145,000
| # | Town | People | Jobs per worker | Work in own town | Claimants | Income | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Guildford Surrey | 77,870 | 1.6 | 54% | 2.2% | £70K | A |
| 2 | St Albans Hertfordshire | 75,544 | 1 | 41% | 2.7% | £80K | A |
| 3 | Bath Somerset | 94,080 | 1.5 | 67% | 2.1% | £61K | A |
| … | |||||||
| 6 | Royal Sutton Coldfield West Midlands | 93,392 | 0.7 | 24% | 2.7% | £63K | A− |
| … | |||||||
| 8 | Chelmsford Essex | 110,612 | 1.2 | 45% | 3.1% | £67K | B+ |
| 9 | York North Yorkshire | 141,696 | 1.3 | 65% | 2.1% | £52K | B+ |
| 10 | Solihull West Midlands | 107,754 | 1.4 | 32% | 3% | £62K | B+ |
| 11 | Bracknell Berkshire | 78,662 | 0.9 | 33% | 3.4% | £66K | B+ |
| 12 | Basingstoke Hampshire | 117,211 | 1 | 59% | 3.2% | £65K | B+ |
| … | |||||||
| 57 | West Bromwich West Midlands | 103,099 | 1 | 24% | 7% | £42K | C− |
| … | |||||||
| 72 | Hartlepool County Durham | 88,001 | 0.9 | 57% | 4.9% | £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 Solihull, and others in West Midlands.
Work next door to Solihull
| Town | People | Jobs | Work in own town | Claimants | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Solihull | 107,754 | 69,450 | 32% | 3% | B+ |
| Cheswick Green | 2,743 | 1,197 | 3% | 2.7% | A− |
| Dickens Heath | 4,797 | 922 | 2% | 2.1% | A+ |
| Knowle and Dorridge | 19,323 | 5,208 | 13% | 1.5% | A+ |
| Tidbury Green | 1,552 | 443 | 1% | 2% | A |
| Hollywood | 6,944 | 1,227 | 8% | 2.4% | B+ |
| Wythall | 2,077 | 1,383 | 2% | 1.3% | A |
| Hampton in Arden | 1,867 | 2,152 | 5% | 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. Solihull 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 Solihull as a whole; the claimant rate elsewhere on this page is Solihull’s built-up area, from small areas.
Questions about work in Solihull
Where do people in Solihull work?
At the 2021 Census, 32% of Solihull’s residents who travelled to work worked in the city itself; the most common other places were Birmingham (9,203), Coventry (860) and Knowle and Dorridge (711). 50% 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 Solihull?
29,881 people who lived elsewhere worked in Solihull at the 2021 Census, 47% of its 63,062 workers. The most came from Birmingham (16,622), Coventry (1,268) and Knowle and Dorridge (749). 16,892 residents travelled out the other way.
How many jobs are there in Solihull?
About 69,450 jobs (employees and working owners) were based in Solihull in 2024, on ONS’s Business Register and Employment Survey: 1.4 for every resident in work, against 0.7 in the typical UK town. The biggest kinds of work are car and vehicle making (about 9,990), shops (about 6,110) and education (about 4,800).
Is Solihull a good place to find work?
Solihull earns a B+ for jobs and income, better than 73% of UK towns on household income, the claimant rate, employment deprivation and access to jobs together. Mean household income £62,275; 3% of 16 to 64s claim unemployment benefits.
How do people in Solihull get to work?
82% of commuters go by car or van, 7% walk, 2% cycle and 7% take the bus or train; 41% travel under 5 km. Census 2021, taken during lockdown.
What is the average household income in Solihull?
Mean household income before tax was £62,275 in the year to March 2023 (ONS), against £52,385 in the typical UK town. By neighbourhood it runs from £50,483 in Solihull Lodge to £77,452 in Central Solihull & Sharmans Cross.
How does Solihull compare with Birmingham for jobs?
Solihull has 1.4 jobs per working resident against Birmingham’s 1.3, a 3% claimant rate against 11%, and mean household income of £62,275 against £45,929.
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.