Police officers, sales assistants and care workers are among the most common former occupations of retired people in their early 50s, census data suggests.
Around one in 18 (5.6%) retirees in England and Wales aged 50-54 – some 2,815 people – gave their former occupation as “police officer, sergeant and below”.
This was comfortably ahead of the next most common occupation, sales/retail assistant, which was listed by 3.0% (1,500 people) of retirees in this age group.
Financial manager (2.8%), care worker/home carer (1.9%) and cleaner/domestic (1.5%) were all in the top 10, while teaching assistant (1.3%) and both primary and secondary teaching professional (1.2%) were in the top 15.
The data has been published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and is the latest to be released from the census, which took place in England and Wales on March 21 2021 – a year into the Covid-19 pandemic.
This was a period of “unparalleled and rapid change”, which may have affected the way some people responded to questions on the census about employment, the ONS said.
“There are many contributing factors as to why people have left work, some being changes in health because of the pandemic, or the cost of childcare or social care for relatives,” it added.
The figures show that among all age groups aged 50 and over, the 50 to 54-year-old group is the only one in which police officer was the most common former occupation for retired people.
The age that people have retired to take their pensions is “a possible explanation for this,” according to the ONS.
“Police officers (sergeant and below)” was the most common occupation for retired adults aged between 50 and 54 years, with the age people are retiring to take their pension a possible explanation of this.
— Office for National Statistics (ONS) (@ONS) September 15, 2023
Sales/retail assistant was the most common occupation in all other groups, accounting for 3.2% of retirees aged 55-59, 3.7% of 60 to 64-year-olds, 4.7% of those aged 65-69, 5.0% of 70 to 74-year-olds and 5.7% of those 75 and over.
The category of police officer sits well down the list of occupations among the oldest age group of retirees, not even making the top 50.
The 5.7% of over-75s who gave their former occupation as sales/retail assistant is the equivalent of 228,055 people – some way ahead of the next most common occupation for this age group, cleaner/domestic (3.9% or 157,665 people) and personal assistant/secretary (3.8% or 152,760 people).
Both primary and secondary teacher appeared in the top 10 most common occupations of retirees for all age groups aged 55 and over, with secondary teacher in the top five for both 60-64 and 65 to 69-year-olds.
Overall, around one in five (21.6%) adults aged 16 and over in England and Wales told the census they were retired – the equivalent of 10.5 million people.
