Working-age adults in rural England are more likely to be in work than their urban counterparts, according to the latest official figures, with a rural employment rate of 78.7% against 74.7% in urban areas.
The data, published by Defra in October as the Rural Economic Bulletin of the Statistical Digest of Rural England, covers April to June 2026. Unemployment among economically active people aged 16 and over was 3.1% in rural areas, compared with 5.2% in urban areas and 4.9% across England as a whole.
The figures also describe an older rural population. Economic inactivity among those aged 16 and over stood at 39.7% in rural areas against 34.8% in urban areas, largely because of retirement: 29.0% of rural residents aged 16 and over were retired, compared with 18.8% in towns and cities. Among people aged 16 to 64, rural inactivity was lower than urban, at 18.7% against 21.1%.
Annual figures for 2025 show variation within the countryside. Smaller rural settlements recorded an employment rate of 79.5% and unemployment of 2.5%, while larger rural settlements reported 78.2% and 3.6% respectively. Remoteness also counts: working-age employment was 79.7% in rural areas nearer a major town or city, falling to 77.2% in those further away, where inactivity rose to 20.3%.
The October release splits the employment section into separate topics on employment, unemployment and economic inactivity, and adds Rural-Urban Classification supplementary tables and local authority data, IndexBox reported.
For rural communities, high employment, low unemployment and a large retired population add up to tight local labour markets, with consequences for recruitment in farming, care and hospitality, and for the services an ageing countryside will need.
Featured image: Photo: Peter Barr, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
