Link with Occupation Codes

An example of an Occupation Code matrix can be found in the image below.

Occupation Codes have been structured in their current form since 1995 and have been used for national workforce collections for many years, therefore providing a consistent means of comparison of broad Staff Groups across sectors and patterns of change over time.

Whilst Occupation Codes are limited to pre-defined combinations, Staff Group, Job Role and Area of Work add flexibility and allow a lower level of detail about what staff do and where they work.  Importantly, they allow analysis across Staff Groups and within teams or areas. The Occupation Code matrix for Medical and Dental staff notably identifies only the specialty being worked in and not the nature of the role undertaken.

Job Role and Area of Work can be used alongside Occupation Codes as complementary coding schemes and to add a further dimension to the classification of the workforce. 

Medical and Dental Occupation Codes consist of three numerical characters which reflect clinical specialties and not the level of work. The Occupation Code should reflect the Specialty for example Anaesthetics) and the Job Role or pay scale code (Grade Code on ESR) should reflect their level of work for example consultant.  The Area of Work should also reflect their Specialty, so in this example a user would select the following:

Locums should be identified by their Occupation Code, which will begin with a 1 rather than a 0 for hospital based medical and dental staff, and a 2 rather than a 9 for community and public health locums.  For example, for a Locum Consultant in Anaesthetics the following would be selected.

Further details are available in the NHS Occupation Code Manual.  The Assignment Category field should also be used to identify Locums who do not have contracted hours.  This is found on the Assignment screen.