The Geographic Distribution of Volunteering Across the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

In this paper we use the Understanding Society household panel survey to estimate the volume and value of volunteering across the NUTS 1 geography of the UK, namely Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales and the 9 English regions. We find that there is considerable variation in the frequency and hours of volunteering across the UK. In the latest figures (2018-19) we find that the proportion of individuals who volunteer varies from 14.5% to 21.1% against the UK average of 17.4%. Using the replacement wage method, we estimate that volunteering in the UK is between 1-1.4% of GDP.