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Hi All,

This is my first time in this forum so hello everyone. I am hoping someone could help me. I am looking to obtain data as a part of research for my university degree and I need to find out this information. I need to know how many households and business' are in certain postcodes and sectors in Northern Ireland. Has anyone any idea on how I would go about obtaining this information?

I would be so greaful for your help.

Thanks,
Patrick

Hello Patrick

For the demographic data I think you need to look through the NISRA site (Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency)
NISRA - Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency
and probably drop them an e-mail to get their advice. I think they will be able to supply you with Census data at an Output Area level (Output Areas are the smallest geographic units for which UK Census data is reported and in Northern Ireland there are around 5000 of these). The key question is can they provide the data aggregated to postcode sector or alternatively can they provide an OA to postcode sector look up file so you can do the aggregation yourself. I imagine the answer will be yes, but as a fallback I know for a fact they can provide a full postcode to OA lookup file so you could probably do the job using this. Remember when you build your dataset from NISRA sources to get geocodes (grid references) for OAs and postcode sectors if you intend mapping. (You will have seen that Mappoint 2006 doesn’t include any demographic data for NI nor does it have postcode sector boundaries like the rest of the UK).

In terms of number of businesses again NISRA might point you in the right direction. Total VAT registered businesses by administrative area, classified by business sector, is available on the NINIS site
NINIS | Neighbourhood Statistics for NI
but whether or not they can pull together the data by postcode sector I don’t really know.

Best rgds and let me know how you get on with the data sources.

__________________
David
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