UK unemployment rate, monthly (three-month average)

At a glance

Publisher

Office for National Statistics · homepage

Category

Economic indicators & prices

Jurisdiction

United Kingdom

Publisher updates

Monthly, with the labour market release

SourceFinch checks

Daily by default

Records per run

665 in the latest run

Record key

period

Acquired from

Publisher's public API: https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peoplenotinwork/unemployment/timeseries/mgsx/lms/data

Recipe

v1.0.0, approved October 12, 2026

Verified since

October 12, 2026

Last green run

October 12, 2026

What the data contains

The Office for National Statistics publishes the UK unemployment rate (aged 16 and over, seasonally adjusted) as time series MGSX in its Labour market statistics dataset (LMS), monthly. Each value is an average over a rolling three-month period from the Labour Force Survey; the ONS keys the period by its middle month and labels it with the three months covered (for example 2026 MAY-JUL). This source reads the series' monthly observations from the ONS website's time-series data on each daily run and makes one record per period, keyed by the ONS period code, with the rate as a number in percent, the period label and the time the ONS last updated that value. A monitor reports each new figure on release day and any later revision. The series is national statistics derived from a survey and contains no personal data. SourceFinch is independent of the ONS.

Fields and types

Every record has these fields. The key field period identifies a record across runs, so changes are reported field by field.

Sample output

The first 5 of 665 records from SourceFinch's own run on October 12, 2026, exactly as delivered.

[
  {
    "year": 1971,
    "label": "1971 JAN-MAR",
    "month": "February",
    "value": 3.8,
    "period": "1971 FEB",
    "updated_at": "2015-10-13T23:00:00.000Z",
    "source_dataset": "LMS"
  },
  {
    "year": 1971,
    "label": "1971 FEB-APR",
    "month": "March",
    "value": 3.9,
    "period": "1971 MAR",
    "updated_at": "2015-10-13T23:00:00.000Z",
    "source_dataset": "LMS"
  },
  {
    "year": 1971,
    "label": "1971 MAR-MAY",
    "month": "April",
    "value": 4,
    "period": "1971 APR",
    "updated_at": "2015-10-13T23:00:00.000Z",
    "source_dataset": "LMS"
  },
  {
    "year": 1971,
    "label": "1971 APR-JUN",
    "month": "May",
    "value": 4.1,
    "period": "1971 MAY",
    "updated_at": "2015-10-13T23:00:00.000Z",
    "source_dataset": "LMS"
  },
  {
    "year": 1971,
    "label": "1971 MAY-JUL",
    "month": "June",
    "value": 4.1,
    "period": "1971 JUN",
    "updated_at": "2015-10-13T23:00:00.000Z",
    "source_dataset": "LMS"
  }
]

Evidence behind every value

• Each run keeps the publisher's exact response, hashed with SHA-256. This sample came from a response with hash a749d9c9990114a4ac48c14ab1d36569e254d88ecf76a4d937d8c5f26c4015c6.
• Every value records where it came from in that response: a JSON Pointer into the retained capture.
• Each run gets a signed manifest (Ed25519) timestamped by an RFC 3161 authority: this run's manifest hash is 5c8cab5afa13099804b516a28c8f03027333adbcc90af9a1074d47f698636763, timestamped October 12, 2026.
• The compliance state at capture is recorded with the evidence: robots.txt hash and verdict, AI-preference signals, crawler identity and the usage rights below.
• Download any run as an evidence bundle (WACZ) and check it offline, without trusting SourceFinch: sourcefinch verify-bundle run.wacz.

Terms posture and usage rights

The Office for National Statistics' terms state that most content on its website is Crown copyright published under the Open Government Licence v3.0, which permits copying, publishing, adapting and commercial use with attribution, and that content is made available through feeds for other websites and applications; photographs, illustrations and other listed exemptions are outside the OGL. Users must not say their website is associated with or endorsed by the ONS. www.ons.gov.uk serves no robots.txt (HTTP 404), which RFC 9309 treats as allowing access, and the time-series data needs no key.

Source: Office for National Statistics (unemployment rate, series MGSX), licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. SourceFinch is independent of and not endorsed by the ONS.

Usage rights travel with every record SourceFinch delivers (API, exports, webhooks and evidence bundles). They are our documented understanding of the publisher's stated terms, not legal advice.

Reliability

Runs, last 30 days

1

Green

100%

Failed

0

Median run time

1.2 s

Latest run

success, October 12, 2026

Measured on completed runs of this recipe version across SourceFinch, anonymized, within a rolling 30-day window. First successful observation: October 12, 2026. A new recipe has only the history collected since that date; this is not a 30-day uptime guarantee.

Use it

Every surface creates the same monitor from this Verified recipe. Monitors keep record history, report field-level changes and deliver by webhook, export or email. You confirm you have the right to collect the source (rights: true).

{
  "schema": "sourcefinch/source@1",
  "name": "UK unemployment rate, monthly (three-month average)",
  "url": "https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peoplenotinwork/unemployment/timeseries/mgsx/lms/data",
  "recipe": {
    "mode": "http",
    "format": "json",
    "items": "months[*]",
    "fields": {
      "year": "year",
      "label": "label",
      "month": "month",
      "value": "value",
      "period": "date",
      "updated_at": "updateDate",
      "source_dataset": "sourceDataset"
    },
    "required": [
      "period",
      "value"
    ],
    "types": {
      "updated_at": "datetime",
      "value": "number",
      "year": "integer"
    }
  },
  "schedule": "daily",
  "key_field": "period"
}

{
  "name": "UK unemployment rate, monthly (three-month average)",
  "url": "https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peoplenotinwork/unemployment/timeseries/mgsx/lms/data",
  "recipe": {
    "mode": "http",
    "format": "json",
    "items": "months[*]",
    "fields": {
      "year": "year",
      "label": "label",
      "month": "month",
      "value": "value",
      "period": "date",
      "updated_at": "updateDate",
      "source_dataset": "sourceDataset"
    },
    "required": [
      "period",
      "value"
    ],
    "types": {
      "year": "integer",
      "value": "number",
      "updated_at": "datetime"
    }
  },
  "key_field": "period",
  "schedule": "daily",
  "rights": true,
  "catalog": {
    "slug": "ons-uk-unemployment-rate",
    "version_id": "3157fdf0-315f-4687-b824-deb16771712c"
  }
}

# the Verified entry (fields, recipe, sample, terms) as JSON
curl https://sourcefinch.com/v1/catalog/ons-uk-unemployment-rate -H "Authorization: Bearer $SOURCEFINCH_API_KEY"

# create the monitor from source.json (below)
curl -X POST https://sourcefinch.com/v1/sources \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $SOURCEFINCH_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "Idempotency-Key: $(uuidgen)" \
  -d @source.json

# then run it now (later runs follow the schedule)
curl -X POST https://sourcefinch.com/v1/sources/$SOURCE_ID/runs \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $SOURCEFINCH_API_KEY" \
  -H "Idempotency-Key: $(uuidgen)"

sourcefinch login
sourcefinch catalog get ons-uk-unemployment-rate --source-json > source.json
sourcefinch sources create --file source.json
sourcefinch runs create $SOURCE_ID --wait
sourcefinch records $SOURCE_ID

import { SourceFinch } from "@sourcefinch/sdk";

const sf = new SourceFinch({ apiKey: process.env.SOURCEFINCH_API_KEY });
const entry = await sf.catalog.get("ons-uk-unemployment-rate");
const source = await sf.sources.create({
  catalog: { slug: entry.slug, version_id: entry.recipe.version_id },
  name: entry.name.slice(0, 100),
  url: entry.acquisition_path.endpoint,
  recipe: entry.recipe.definition,
  key_field: entry.recipe.key_field,
  schedule: entry.recipe.schedule,
  rights: true, // you confirm you have the right to collect this source
});
const run = await sf.runs.wait((await sf.runs.create(source.id)).id);
console.log(run.status);

claude mcp add --transport http sourcefinch https://sourcefinch.com/mcp

# then ask your agent:
"Use SourceFinch to monitor UK unemployment rate, monthly (three-month average): get_catalog_source ons-uk-unemployment-rate,
then create_source with its create_source_args (dry run first), then run_source."

Pricing

Each check is one run, whatever the number of records, and failed runs are free. On its default daily schedule this source uses about 30 runs a month, which fits the Free plan's 300 runs. It uses HTTP acquisition, so no browser runs are needed. See plans.

Guides using this source

• Watch U.S. and UK economic indicators as they are released

All guides

Related sources

• UK consumer price inflation (CPI annual rate), monthly · also from Office for National Statistics
• EU monthly unemployment rate · Economic indicators & prices, Eurostat
• EU quarterly GDP growth · Economic indicators & prices, Eurostat
• Euro area HICP annual inflation rate · Economic indicators & prices, Eurostat

More from Office for National Statistics and in economic indicators & prices.