Story · Transport map · about 3 min
Does living near a station mean living near jobs?
A short walk to a railway station and a high concentration of jobs sound like they should go together: both are marks of a well-connected place. Comparing the two maps council by council shows they mostly measure different things.
Where the two really do meet
The City of London is the one place where both are true at once: 100% of residents are within a 30-minute walk of a station, and it has by far the highest job density in the country, 56.9 jobs per resident. It is the exception.
100% walk to a station, hardly any jobs
Lewisham is one of many councils where every resident counted is within a 30-minute walk of a station, yet its job density is only 0.44 jobs per resident: a place people travel out of to work. Across 318 councils, station access and job density correlate at just 0.11.
No trains, and chargers don't follow jobs either
5 councils (Gosport, Isles of Scilly, North West Leicestershire, Rossendale, Torridge) have no residents within a 30-minute walk of any station at all. Public EV chargers tell a similar story: their count barely tracks job density either, correlating at just 0.01. Chargers seem to follow where cars are parked overnight.
Two kinds of well-connected
A station nearby measures where you can leave from. Job density measures where people arrive to work. Few places score high on both, which is worth remembering the next time a place is called "well connected".
For classrooms and curious minds
Questions to talk about, alone or in a group.
- Why might living near a station and living near jobs be different things?
- What would a map of "well connected" need to include to be fair?
Try it on the map: Find your own council on both maps. Which is higher for you, station access or job density?
The figures above are calculated from the datasets listed on Data & sources and are approximate: many map layers are modelled or interpolated. Read each layer’s caveats on the map.