The 2016 UK Budget – what does the data say?

On March 16th 2016, our Chancellor George Osborne set out the cavalcade of new policies that contribute towards this year's UK budget. Each results in either a cost or saving to the public funds, which has to be forecast as part of the budget release. Given the constant focus on "austerity", seeing what this Government chooses to spend its money on and … Continue reading The 2016 UK Budget – what does the data say? →

Stress, depression and anxiety in the workplace – what does the data show?

Stress, depression and anxiety are all disorders that can have extremely serious effects for the sufferer. The Health and Safety Executive list quite a few, of varying ranges of severity and scope. It's acknowledged that in some cases these can be brought on by problems in the workplace; an issue that desperately needs addressing and resolving given the criticality of paid … Continue reading Stress, depression and anxiety in the workplace – what does the data show? →

Characteristics of England’s secondary school teachers

In exploring the data behind England's teacher supply model, it became apparent that the split of teachers by gender and age shows certain patterns by subject. Click through and use the below viz interactively to answer questions such as: How many secondary school teachers are there in the UK? What percentage of all teachers are female? Are there certain … Continue reading Characteristics of England’s secondary school teachers →

Are station toilets profitable?

After being charged 50p for the convenience of using a station convenience, I became curious as to whether the owners were making much money on this most annoying expression of a capitalistic monopoly high on the needs of many humans. It turns out data on those managed by Network Rail is available in the name … Continue reading Are station toilets profitable? →

Using CBT techniques to combat my insomnia – what does the data show?

Please click through and view the story interactively below. If anyone is interested in the cognitive behavioral therapy techniques concerned, here's the book I was recommended ([UK Amazon link])...I get no commission :-).

New chart types coming in Excel 2016

As far as I can recall, it has been many many years since a new chart type of significance has found its way into an Excel update. However for the 2016 release we're getting some new treats, as seen in this presentation from Scott Ruble. Several of those chart types are versions of what could already be done in … Continue reading New chart types coming in Excel 2016 →

Lib Dem leaflet chart fail

Coming up to the election, there's no shortage of misleading statistics, charts and downright quantitative lies being flung around. One even made it through our letterbox today. It's far from the worst available online, but such statistical slights always feel more personal when they get physically pushed into one's abode. Here goes the Liberal Democrats, being honest enough to admit that their … Continue reading Lib Dem leaflet chart fail →

Every death in the Game of Thrones – a visualisation

The Washington Post published a nice visualisation concerning the many, many deaths in Game of Thrones yesterday - apparently there have been 456 such violent extravaganzas. Coded by season, allegiance, importance of character, method of death and other such metadata it gives a nice refresh of the important parts of the storyline. Find out which location was deadliest, which … Continue reading Every death in the Game of Thrones – a visualisation →

Free data: Constituency Explorer – UK demographics, politics, behaviour

From some combination of the Office of National Statistics, the House of Commons and Durham library comes Constituency Explorer. Billing itself as "reliable evidence for politicians and journalists - data for everyone", it allows interactive visualisation of many interesting demographics/behavioural/political attributes by UK political constituency. It's easy to view distributions and compare between a specific contstituency, the region … Continue reading Free data: Constituency Explorer – UK demographics, politics, behaviour →

My first Tableau Public viz – who was happy yesterday?

Please click through the image below to enjoy flicking through the story points and interacting with the viz to learn the characteristics of where and why people might have been happy in the UK "yesterday".