Mapping the Second Industrial Revolution
This project maps the changing occupational structure of Great Britain across the Second Industrial Revolution, tracking both job loss and job creation. I explore this transformation at three levels of granularity: changes at the Order level, at the Industry level, and at the Micro-Occupations level.
1. Occupational Orders over Time
Click a year to view the treemap of the different sectors of the British economy by census year.
Orders ranked by growth, 1851–1911
Showing the growth in different sectors of the economy over the period. Sectors shown in blue are growing more rapidly than average population growth.
2. Occupational Industries: Growth and Decline
Showing growth by industry over the period. Note that the extreme outliers are primarily in industries which were very small or non-existent in 1851.
Population doubled over the period: any industry growing more than 100% outpaced population growth, industries which grew less lagged.
3. Micro-Occupations: Growth and Decline
Each industry is itself made up of many different jobs: micro-occupations. In moving one level deeper, we can see the distinct occupations within each industry. This makes it possible to track how they grew and declined over the 2nd Industrial Revolution.
Click the Dress order to open it up, then click a highlighted occupation to see how its tasks changed over time. Click the background to step back out.
4. Results
Growth
4.1 Map of specific new jobs
Where did specific new occupations emerge across the country? Choose a trade and a census year to see the share of the workforce it accounted for in each county.
New jobs of the 19th century
Ranked by number of workers, 1911.
| Occupation | Workers, 1911 |
|---|---|
| Electrician | 55,447 |
| Motor driver | 44,947 |
| Typist | 41,927 |
| Bicycle maker | 33,461 |
| Telegraph | 33,129 |
| Telephonist | 19,230 |
| Photographer | 17,134 |
| Asphalter | 1,612 |
| Anaesthetist | 353 |
| X-ray operatorAlso known as… radiographer · skiagraphist · roentgenologist · x-rayist · x-ray man (even railway xrayman) · x-ray attendant · x-ray photographer | 77 |
4.2 Mapping of management jobs
An initial mapping of the rise of management jobs in the UK, by county.
4.3 Map of mechanization
An initial mapping of the emergence of new technologies in the UK, by county.
Unlike the apprenticeship system, mechanization rises on both measures — in share and in absolute numbers: by 1911 there are at least about 1.5 million more people working with machines.
Decline
4.4 Mapping of the apprenticeship system
The apprenticeship system declines everywhere between 1851–1911. The decline is more rapid after 1881. Less urban areas seem to retain more of the system than elsewhere.
But this is a decline in share, not in absolute numbers. Summed across the three roles, the system actually grows slightly — from about 252,000 in 1851 to about 261,000 in 1911, a net rise of roughly 9,000. Apprentices themselves increase substantially, by almost 90,000; the real decline is among journeymen (down about 65,000) and masters.
Total Participation
Role Breakdown
5. Discussion
5.1 Occupational Skills Inheritance
| Occupation | 1851 | 1861 | 1881 | Difference | OccScore | SonsScore |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coal Miners | ||||||
| Farmer, Grazier | ||||||
| Bricklayer | ||||||
| Mason | ||||||
| Carpenter, Joiner | ||||||
| Agricultural Labour | ||||||
| Blacksmiths | ||||||
| Butchers | ||||||
| Tailors | ||||||
| General Labour | ||||||
| Gardener | ||||||
| Innkeepers |
5.2 The shape of the workforce: Orders, sub-Orders, and occupations
Every occupation nests inside a sub-Order, and every sub-Order inside one of the 22 Orders. The circles below pack that whole structure, with each circle's area proportional to its 1911 workforce. Click any bubble to zoom in; click the background to zoom back out.
Circle area ∝ workers in 1911 · click to zoom in · click outside to zoom out · hover for counts
Changing Taxonomies: Census Waves 1851–1911
The grey treemap is the 1911 classification — Orders, their sub-Orders, and the occupations within them: the structure everything eventually settled into. Pick an earlier census and hover any occupation to light up the others it was lumped with that year — wherever they ended up on the 1911 map. The more scattered the highlight, the more that early census cut across the modern Orders.
Migration within Orders, 1851 → 1861
Zoom in one level. Even within a single Order, the census kept reorganising. Here the 22 Orders stay fixed as the outer bubbles, and inside each one the occupations are grouped by their real census category for the chosen year. Flip between 1851 and 1861 to watch occupations split apart, merge together, or reshuffle within their Order. Unchanged occupations stay grey.
6. Conclusion
- From roughly 800 industries to about 10,000 micro-occupations.
- Micro-occupations are necessary to track the emergence of new work and the decline of older jobs.
- Rise of management jobs and factory work.
- Decline of the apprenticeship system, in terms of shares. In absolute numbers, it increases by about 9,000.
- Implications: how society absorbs technological shocks; who gets the new jobs.
- Next steps: finalise boundaries and definitions of new jobs.