The City of Oxford is home to around 4,950 businesses, collectively employing approximately 128,000 people.
The city has a large number of people employed in universities and the public sector, but also has significant jobs in other sectors including publishing, tourism, hospitality and a growing hi-tech sector fuelled by the highly qualified workforce. For additional details, please visit our labour market and major employers pages.
Oxford is the tourism gateway to the rest of Oxfordshire. We attract approximately 7 million daytime and staying visitors per year, generating £780 million of income for local Oxford businesses. In terms of overseas visitors to the UK, Oxford is the ninth most visited city for staying visits in 2021.
The number of Jobseeker's Allowance (JSA) claimants plus those who claim Universal Credit (UC) who are out of work is currently 2,710 or 2.3% of workers as of March 2023. This compares to 2.6% of workers as of last March.
The number of people unemployed is different to the number of people claiming JSA or UC - as some unemployed people choose not to claim or are not eligible to claim. The most recent estimate of Oxford's unemployment rate is 2.6% for the period January 2022 to December 2022; this is below the national average of 3.6%.
