Headcount: what it means
A count of individual people, each counted once regardless of how many hours they work or how many posts they hold.
Headcount is the number of individual people in a group. In workforce statistics, a person counts as one whether they work 10 hours or 40 hours a week. Some publications count people once even if they hold two posts in the same organisation; others count posts, so check the definition.
Worked example
A hypothetical hospital employs 500 people: 300 full time and 200 part time at an average of 0.6 of full hours. Headcount is 500. Full-time equivalent is 300 + (200 x 0.6) = 420.
Headcount outside workforce statistics
The term is also used for simple counts of people in a place at a moment, such as a prison population on a given date or pupils on a school roll on census day.
How it trips up claims
- A claim of "1,000 more staff" may compare headcount in one year with FTE in another.
- Headcount on a single snapshot date can differ from the average over a year.
- Headcount of people and count of posts or jobs are different: one person can hold two jobs.
Also searched as: head count, number of people, headcount meaning, headcount vs FTE
Key figures where it matters
- UK employment rate
- NHS waiting list (England)
- Prison population (England and Wales)
- NHS employment (UK)
- Police officer numbers (England and Wales)
- Pupils in schools in England
- Number of self-employed people in the UK
- Teachers in state-funded schools in England
- People on Universal Credit (Great Britain)
Questions that use this term
- How many staff work for the NHS?
- How many police officers are there in England and Wales?
- What is the UK prison population?
- How many pupils are in schools in England?
Related terms
- Full-time equivalent (FTE) and headcount: FTE converts part-time posts into full-time units, so two half-time staff count as one FTE. Headcount counts each person once regardless of hours.
More jobs, pay and living standards terms: ILO unemployment · Claimant count · Economic inactivity · Full-time equivalent (FTE) and headcount · Relative and absolute poverty · Before and after housing costs (BHC and AHC) · NEET (not in education, employment or training) · Employment rate · Average weekly earnings (AWE) · Payrolled employees (PAYE RTI) · Real household disposable income (RHDI) · Households below average income (HBAI).