ons: Download Data from the Office for National Statistics

Description

Provides functions to download and tidy statistical data published by the Office for National Statistics https://www.ons.gov.uk. Covers GDP, inflation (CPI, CPIH, RPI), unemployment, employment, wages, trade, retail sales, house prices, productivity, population, and public sector finances. Most series are fetched from the ONS website using its CSV time series endpoint. House price data is sourced from HM Land Registry https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/land-registry. Data is cached locally between sessions.

Author(s)

Maintainer: Charles Coverdale charlesfcoverdale@gmail.com

See Also

Useful links:

• https://github.com/charlescoverdale/ons

• Report bugs at https://github.com/charlescoverdale/ons/issues

Clear the local download cache

Description

Removes cached data files stored by this package. By default all cached files are deleted. Use max_age_days to remove only files older than a given number of days.

Usage

clear_cache(max_age_days = NULL)

Arguments

Value

Invisibly returns NULL. Called for its side effect of deleting cached files.

Examples

clear_cache()

Download consumer price inflation

Description

Downloads CPI, CPIH, or RPI data from the ONS. Returns either the annual rate of change or the index level.

Usage

ons_cpi(
  measure = c("cpi", "cpih", "rpi"),
  type = c("rate", "index"),
  from = NULL,
  to = NULL,
  cache = TRUE
)

Arguments

Value

A data frame with columns:

date

Date. First day of the month.

value

Numeric. Inflation rate (percent) or index level.

Source

https://www.ons.gov.uk

Examples

ons_cpi(from = "2020-01-01")

Download employment rate

Description

Downloads the UK employment rate (aged 16 to 64, seasonally adjusted) from the ONS Labour Market Statistics. Available from 1971.

Usage

ons_employment(
  group = c("total", "male", "female"),
  from = NULL,
  to = NULL,
  cache = TRUE
)

Arguments

Value

A data frame with columns:

date

Date. First day of the period.

value

Numeric. Employment rate (percent).

Source

https://www.ons.gov.uk

Examples

ons_employment(from = "2020-01-01")

Download GDP data

Description

Downloads quarterly Gross Domestic Product data from the ONS. Available from 1948 (levels) or 1955 (growth rates).

Usage

ons_gdp(
  measure = c("growth", "yoy", "level", "nominal"),
  from = NULL,
  to = NULL,
  cache = TRUE
)

Arguments

Value

A data frame with columns:

date

Date. First day of the quarter.

value

Numeric. GDP value (percent for growth measures, GBP millions for level measures).

Source

https://www.ons.gov.uk

Examples

ons_gdp(from = "2020-01-01")

Download any ONS time series by CDID code

Description

Fetches a time series from the ONS website using its CDID (four-character series identifier). The function uses the ONS Search API to discover the download path, then retrieves the CSV.

Usage

ons_get(cdid, from = NULL, to = NULL, cache = TRUE)

Arguments

Details

CDID codes can be found by browsing the ONS time series explorer at https://www.ons.gov.uk/timeseriestool or by using ons_search().

Value

A data frame with columns:

date

Date. Observation date (first day of the period).

cdid

Character. The CDID code.

value

Numeric. Observation value.

Source

https://www.ons.gov.uk

Examples

ons_get("IHYQ", from = "2020-01-01")

Download UK house prices

Description

Downloads UK average house prices from the HM Land Registry UK House Price Index. Available from 1968. Data is jointly produced by the ONS and HM Land Registry.

Usage

ons_house_prices(from = NULL, to = NULL, cache = TRUE)

Arguments

Details

The function automatically finds the latest available monthly file from HM Land Registry, working backwards from the current month.

Value

A data frame with columns:

date

Date. First day of the month.

average_price_gbp

Numeric. Average house price (GBP).

annual_change_pct

Numeric. Annual percentage change.

Source

https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/uk-house-price-index-reports

Examples

ons_house_prices(from = "2020-01-01")

Download economic inactivity

Description

Downloads the number of economically inactive people (aged 16 to 64, seasonally adjusted) from the ONS Labour Market Statistics. Available from 1971.

Usage

ons_inactivity(from = NULL, to = NULL, cache = TRUE)

Arguments

Value

A data frame with columns:

date

Date. First day of the period.

value

Numeric. Economically inactive people (thousands).

Source

https://www.ons.gov.uk

Examples

ons_inactivity(from = "2020-01-01")

Download monthly GDP estimate

Description

Downloads the monthly estimate of GDP from the ONS. This is an experimental index-based estimate, available from 1997.

Usage

ons_monthly_gdp(from = NULL, to = NULL, cache = TRUE)

Arguments

Value

A data frame with columns:

date

Date. First day of the month.

value

Numeric. Monthly GDP index (2019 = 100).

Source

https://www.ons.gov.uk

Examples

ons_monthly_gdp(from = "2020-01-01")

Download population estimates

Description

Downloads mid-year population estimates for the United Kingdom from the ONS. Returns annual estimates.

Usage

ons_population(from = NULL, to = NULL, cache = TRUE)

Arguments

Value

A data frame with columns:

date

Date. Mid-year date (represented as 1 January).

value

Numeric. Population estimate (thousands).

Source

https://www.ons.gov.uk

Examples

ons_population(from = "2000-01-01")

Download labour productivity

Description

Downloads quarterly labour productivity data from the ONS. Available as output per hour worked or output per worker.

Usage

ons_productivity(
  measure = c("per_hour", "per_worker"),
  from = NULL,
  to = NULL,
  cache = TRUE
)

Arguments

Value

A data frame with columns:

date

Date. First day of the quarter.

value

Numeric. Productivity index.

Source

https://www.ons.gov.uk

Examples

ons_productivity(from = "2020-01-01")

Download public sector finances

Description

Downloads public sector net borrowing (excluding public sector banks) from the ONS. Available from 1993.

Usage

ons_public_finances(from = NULL, to = NULL, cache = TRUE)

Arguments

Value

A data frame with columns:

date

Date. First day of the month.

value

Numeric. Public sector net borrowing (GBP millions).

Source

https://www.ons.gov.uk

Examples

ons_public_finances(from = "2020-01-01")

Download retail sales index

Description

Downloads the Retail Sales Index from the ONS. Returns volume (quantity) or value (amount spent) indices.

Usage

ons_retail_sales(
  type = c("volume", "value"),
  from = NULL,
  to = NULL,
  cache = TRUE
)

Arguments

Value

A data frame with columns:

date

Date. First day of the month.

value

Numeric. Retail sales index.

Source

https://www.ons.gov.uk

Examples

ons_retail_sales(from = "2020-01-01")

Search for ONS time series

Description

Searches the ONS catalogue for time series matching a keyword or phrase. Returns CDID codes, titles, and dataset information that can be used with ons_get().

Usage

ons_search(query, limit = 10L)

Arguments

Value

A data frame with columns:

cdid

Character. The four-character CDID code.

dataset_id

Character. The ONS dataset identifier.

title

Character. Description of the series.

release_date

Character. Date of the most recent release.

Source

https://www.ons.gov.uk

Examples

ons_search("GDP growth")

Download UK trade data

Description

Downloads UK trade in goods and services data from the ONS. Available from 1948.

Usage

ons_trade(
  measure = c("balance", "exports", "imports"),
  from = NULL,
  to = NULL,
  cache = TRUE
)

Arguments

Value

A data frame with columns:

date

Date. First day of the month.

value

Numeric. Trade value (GBP millions).

Source

https://www.ons.gov.uk

Examples

ons_trade(from = "2020-01-01")

Download unemployment rate

Description

Downloads the UK unemployment rate (aged 16 and over, seasonally adjusted) from the ONS Labour Market Statistics. Available from 1971.

Usage

ons_unemployment(from = NULL, to = NULL, cache = TRUE)

Arguments

Value

A data frame with columns:

date

Date. First day of the period.

value

Numeric. Unemployment rate (percent).

Source

https://www.ons.gov.uk

Examples

ons_unemployment(from = "2020-01-01")

Download average weekly earnings

Description

Downloads average weekly earnings (AWE) for the whole economy from the ONS Labour Market Statistics. Available from 2000.

Usage

ons_wages(
  measure = c("level", "growth", "real"),
  from = NULL,
  to = NULL,
  cache = TRUE
)

Arguments

Value

A data frame with columns:

date

Date. First day of the month.

value

Numeric. Earnings level (GBP), growth rate (percent), or real index.

Source

https://www.ons.gov.uk

Examples

ons_wages(from = "2020-01-01")