British Population Survey Using OAC

The British Population Survey provides some of the most robust and up-to-date demographic data on Great Britain, and it has just improved, having added OAC as a variable, allowing greater insight into the population characteristics of the OAC variables than ever before.

The British Population Survey interviews between 6 and 8 thousand individuals every month, accounting for an annual total of 80 to 85 thousand people. Each wave of interviews is entirely representative of the British adult population and is conducted by interviewers face-to-face as opposed to over the internet or by mail-shot.

The objective of the British Population Survey is to answer questions as to how many people fit a specific profile, how these profiles compare, what the effect of time is, and so on. Thus the addition of OAC allows the deeper appreciation of the structure of population groups, and of the strength of geodemographic classifications.

Accessing the British Population Survey (and the associated British Marketing Survey) involves going to the BPS website and downloading their data analysis software – DataTalk Explorer. You can download the software for free and it comes with a complete set of 2008 data so you can get a sense of how it can be of use to you. The most up-to-date data (currently May 2010 – total over 200,000 interviews) is available for a one off, no commitment, fee of £125.

In terms of what this means for OAC, we will have the OAC classification available in a commercial product which will hopefully increase awareness of the classification and its status as a National Statistic, but we are also working with the chaps at the British population survey to produce some static index scores, as part of an anticipated Grand Index, for OAC in order to begin to add value to the classification and make it a more useful choice for users.