Archive:Europe 2020 indicators - United Kingdom
Data extracted in August 2019.
No planned update.
This Statistics Explained article is outdated and has been archived - for recent information on Europe 2020 strategy see here.
Source: Eurostat (see dedicated web section: Europe 2020 headline indicators)
This article is part of a set of statistical articles on Europe 2020 strategy, focusing on the situation in the United Kingdom.
Full article
Overview
The United Kingdom has not adopted specific national Europe 2020 targets apart from the already existing climate change and renewable energy commitments (as a consequence, no radar chart can be shown in this case). After rising continuously since 2012, the country’s employment rate reached a decade high of 78.7 % in 2018, exceeding the EU aggregate performance of 73.2 %. In the period between 2008 and 2018, the UK managed to increase its tertiary educational attainment rate from 39.5 % to 48.8 %. The indicator on early school leavers recorded a 6.2 percentage point reduction, from 16.9 % in 2008 to 10.7 % in 2018. Although more than 1.2 million people have been lifted out of the risk of poverty since 2013, there were still 256 000 more people at risk of poverty or social exclusion compared with 2008. R&D expenditure constituted 1.66 % of GDP in 2017, a value close to the 2008 level. By 2017, the country had reduced its GHG emissions in ESD sectors by 20.6 % (compared with the ESD base year), meeting its Europe 2020 reduction target of 16 %. Regarding renewable energy, the UK was the fourth furthest country (after France, Netherlands and Ireland) from its renewable energy target in 2017 with a gap of 4.8 percentage points. Between 2008 and 2017, the UK reduced its primary energy consumption by 35.0 Mtoe, meeting its 2020 target of 177.6 Mtoe.
Data sources
More information about the origin of the data and the calculation of indicators can be obtained via the Europe 2020 indicators dedicated website.
Under 'Main tables', click on the icons next to the indicators:
- 'Explanatory texts (metadata)' for a detailed overview of the collection and compilation methods;
- 'Information on the leaf' for data availability per country.
A more general overview of quality procedures can be found in Implementation of standard reference metadata for indicators - the ESMS Indicator Profile (ESMS-IP) (PDF file).
Context
Europe 2020 is the EU’s agenda for jobs and growth for the current decade. It emphasises smart, sustainable and inclusive growth as a way to strengthen the EU economy and prepare its structure for the challenges of the next decade. As a main objective, the strategy strives to deliver high levels of employment, productivity and social cohesion in the Member States, while reducing the impact on the natural environment.
Direct access to
- Towards robust quality management for European Statistics - Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council COM(2011) 211 final.
- Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 of 11 March 2009 on European statistics