MORE than one in 10 workers in Bournemouth is a manager, director or senior official, official figures show.

There are 9,500 people in the town employed in the top category of occupations – 10.1 per cent of the working population.

Another 17,000 – 18.1 per cent – are in professional occupations.

Figures from the Department for Work and Pensions also shed light on which sectors are the biggest employers in Dorset.

In Bournemouth, the health, education and public sectors still employ the largest proportion of staff, with Bournemouth Borough Council being “one of the largest, if not the single largest employer”, the figures note.

There are 13,200 people in health and 7,200 in education.

David McArthur, Dorset and New Forest account manager for the Department for Work and Pensions, said: “The largest proportion of staff are still employed within the health, education and public sectors – Bournemouth Borough Council being one of the largest, if not the single largest employer, with Bournemouth and Christchurch NHS Trust and Bournemouth University also being significant.

“The local tourism industry is responsible for nearly 10,000 jobs and remains buoyant. However, seasonal peaks of course still affect job volumes advertised.

“Christchurch jobs are not as dependent on tourism – however, the sector here still generates over £53million.

“Even with austerity and local economic impacts, we still find finance playing a key role locally, providing one in four jobs. JPMorgan is one of the largest financial employers; however, the Nationwide Building Society also has a sizeable presence as well as many insurance companies. The number of language schools also impacts significantly.”

The retail industry employs 10,200 people – making it the second largest sector, with 12.8 per cent of the working population. Accommodation and food employ 9,100 and financial and insurance 8,600, or 10.8 per cent.

But the situation is different in Poole, where health employs 12,200 people (15.6 per cent) but the second biggest sector is manufacturing, with 11,300 staff. Only 1,900 people in Bournemouth are in manufacturing.

Poole now has fewer than half Bournemouth’s number of financial services employees – a gap influenced by the large reduction in staff at Barclays over recent years and the relocation of some financial businesses to the neighbouring town.

Whereas financial services and insurance are Bournemouth’s fourth biggest employer, with 8,600 jobs and 10.8 per cent of the total, in Poole the sector employs 4,100 people, or 5.2 per cent. In the rest of Dorset, the figure is only 2,200, or 1.4 per cent.

The figures also show the most popular kind of vacancies being sought by graduates of the town’s two universities. They are: marketing (40.9 per cent), management (29.6 per cent), advertising/public relations (28.5 per cent), media (23.8 per cent) and finance (20.9 per cent).

Bournemouth’s top five sectors in full are:

  1. Health (including care) 13,200
  2. Retail 10,200
  3. Accommodation and food services 9,100
  4. Financial and insurance 8,600
  5. Education 7,200

In Dorset as a whole, the top sectors are:

  1. Health (including care) 47,900
  2. Retail 36,500
  3. Manufacturing 31,200
  4. Education 30,000
  5. Accommodation and food services 29,900
  6. Professional, scientific and technical 17,900
  7. Business administration and support services 17,000
  8. Construction 15,700
  9. Finance and insurance 14,900
  10. Public administration and defence 14,600 11 Arts, entertainment, recreation and other services 14,500.