Scaffolders, beauticians and bricklayers still ‘most likely to be unjabbed’

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Andrew Feinberg

White House Correspondent

Scaffolders, beauticians and bricklayers are still among the occupations likely to have the highest levels of non-vaccination against Covid-19 – though rates have improved for bar staff and call centre workers.

Around one in five scaffolders and riggers in England (20.3%) have not received any doses of vaccine, along with roughly the same proportion of complementary medicine professionals (20.2%) and roofers and tilers (18.8%), new figures suggest.

The same three occupations topped a similar list of rates of non-vaccination at the end of last year and levels have improved only slightly since then.

But other jobs have recorded bigger drops, including bar staff (down from 16.5% of people unjabbed to 12.5%), call centre workers (15.3% to 11.8%) and waiters and waitresses (14.4% to 11.0%).

Other occupations that continue to have some of the highest estimated levels of unjabbed workers are beauticians (16.7%, down from 19.5%), bricklayers (14.5%, down from 15.7%) and sports players (14.0%, down from 17.0%).

The latest figures have been published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and are based on vaccinations delivered in England up to February 28 for adults aged 18 to 64.

The previous data, also from the ONS, provided a snapshot of estimated vaccination rates as of December 31.

A comparison of the figures shows that 7.2% of all working-age adults in employment in England were likely to be unvaccinated at the end of February, down from 8.8% at the end of 2021.

Other occupations to see some of the biggest drops in the proportion of unvaccinated workers between December and February are delivery operatives, down from 19.6% to 15.6%; packers, bottlers and canners, down from 18.8% to 15.1%; and telephone salespersons, down from 17.2% to 12.7%.

The three jobs with the lowest levels of non-vaccination continue to be senior police officers (1.1%), clinical psychologists (1.7%) and head teachers and principals (1.8%).

Among occupations with larger workforces, very low levels of non-vaccination were estimated for GPs (1.8%), police officers (2.9%) and marketing and sales directors (3.0%).

All figures have been based on people recorded in 2011 and 2021 censuses and who are registered with a GP, the ONS said.

Changes in non-vaccination rates are likely to have been affected the very high levels of coronavirus infections in England in recent months.

People are not able to receive any doses of Covid-19 vaccine within 28 days of having had the virus.

This will have prevented many individuals from getting their first, second or booster dose at the time when they would otherwise have been eligible.