Dataset description and subject overview

ESDS International at Mimas hosts over 40 major National Statistics (NS) Time Series Data publications relating to economics, trade, employment and industry. Each 'publication' or 'dataset' in the NS Time Series Data is a group of related time series that mirrors a National Statistics printed publication, e.g. The Pink Book which contains series on the UK Balance of Payments.

The databank contains monthly, quarterly and annual datasets. Monthly datasets include Labour Market Statistics, Monthly Digest, Financial Statistics, Economic Trends plus Retail, Consumer and Producer Price Indices. Quarterly datasets include National Accounts, Acquisitions and Mergers, Consumer Trends, GDP and Trade by Industry. The Annual Datasets are The Pink Book, the Blue Book, Share Ownership and Economic Trends Annual Supplement.

Please see the National Statistic's contents of Time Series Data (www.statistics.gov.uk/statbase/tsdcont.asp) for full coverage details and the Time Series Data home page (www.statistics.gov.uk/statbase/tsdintro.asp) for the latest information about each dataset (e.g. any publication errors, discontinued data etc.).

The Beyond 20/20 WDS interface allows users to search the series titles in all Time Series Data publications using keyword or series code. For common acronyms and abbreviations used within time series titles please go to the National Statistics Time Series Glossary page (www.statistics.gov.uk/statbase/tsdglossary.asp).

Once the required series is located further information about that series (such as when it was released by National Statistics and the number of observations) can be viewed using the series' Summary Notes icon and the series data can be downloaded to your pc.

Every series in the databank has a descriptive title (e.g. Average price, pence, bananas per lb) and also a unique six letter series code made up of the following:

• Chars 1-4: National Statistics series identifier unique to each particular time series (known as CDID - Central shared Database IDentifier)
• Char 5: Periodicity (A, Q or M)
• Char 6: Seasonality (A or U)

Although the series codes do not seem to have any logical structure, series covering a similar area have series codes that start with the same two or three characters, e.g. MG covers employment/unemployment. This is sometimes useful to try if you find an interesting series with a keyword search and wish to look for other related series.

The datasets are also available directly from National Statistics, but at ESDS International users can search across all Time Series Data publications by keyword or series code using the Beyond 20/20 Web Data Server interface.

User Documentation

Photo by: yewenyi, Creative Commons, Flickr

The Time Series Data hosted by ESDS International is delivered via Beyond 20/20 Web Data Server, a simple web interface which allows users to search across all series titles in datasets held by the service. A guide to accessing the Time Series data using Beyond 20/20 WDS is available in [html] and [pdf] format.

The National Statistics Glossary provides guidance on keywords, series codes and other search tips and the National Statistics United Kingdom Input-Output Analyses 2005 Edition, © Crown copyright 2005, provides some useful information on abbreviations used in the National Statistics National Accounts data.

Note: You will need Adobe Acrobat Reader software to read documents in pdf format. It can be downloaded free of charge from the Adobe website.

Accessing the National Statistics Time Series data

To access the ESDS International macro-economic datasets you must be a user from a UK higher or further education institution. We cannot provide data to users outside of this community due to the data re-distribution license agreements we have with our data providers. If you are a member of a UK higher or further education institution access to the macro-economic datasets is provided free of charge.

Access to data requires ESDS registration and uses the federated access management authentication system. Registration is a simple online process - go to the How to Register web page at (www.esds.ac.uk/aandp/access/access.asp) to begin the process.

Once you have registered with ESDS and attempt to access one of the macro-economic datasets, you will automatically be prompted to agree to additional dataset specific conditions if they apply.

Countries covered by the National Statistics Time Series Data

United Kingdom.

Periodicity and Time Range

The databank contains monthly, quarterly and annual datasets. The earliest series in the Time Series Data starts at 1946, though others begin at various dates from that year onwards.

The Time Series Data at ESDS International is updated quarterly. See the latest data update page for further information.