Amateur licences - the OFCOM data release

I recently made a Freedom of Information Act request to OFCOM, asking for the number of 'live' (i.e. currently validated) amateur licences by category, and also the number of new issue licences.

Hot off the press, here is the data for live licences, as at 1st January of each year:

Live licences by type and year in the UK.  Source: OFCOM, 11/03/2020.

On the face of it, the numbers look fairly encouraging.  The period in question does include the time (2016) when OFCOM decided to start deactivating licences whose holders had not revalidated in the past 5 years, but this seems to have little effect in practice.

Overall, the number of full licence holders is pretty flat.  Foundation holders are growing nicely, though the number going on to intermediate is far less, and at a slightly slower rate.

Curiously, if one adds up all the licence holders (excluding clubs), then we get roughly 80,000 live licences.  Only about a quarter of that figure are members of the RSGB.

Next, the number of new issue licences in a given year:

New issue licences by type and year, UK.  Source: OFCOM, 11/03/2020.

Now the situation is not quite so encouraging.  There's a nearly 7% drop in the number of new Foundation licence issues over the ten year period.

With a new solar cycle 25 about to begin, it may be that, as hinted at in the left side of the graph, when Cycle 24 was climbing out of inactivity, a modest increase may begin shortly in the number of Foundation holders.  But, there may be a prompt there also to keep a sharp eye on whether or not it really is a solar cycle effect that is causing the change, or something more concerning.

Overall, the number of Full licence issues remains essentially stable with time, with a very modest increasing trend across time in the Intermediate level.  For some reason, there is a significant rise in the club new licence issues, though that is not so important, I guess.

So, superficially, a reasonably good outlook for the moment.  It will be interesting to see how the graphs develop as we move through solar cycle 25, which will coincide with the end of active radio for many of the 'Baby Boomer' generation.

Maybe you can analyse the numbers and find other things to discuss?  If so, 'comments' is the place to do it!  But please don't be silly, like one member of a Facebook group, who argued until he looked as stupid as Donald Trump that, after 2017, there was definitely an upward trend in the number of people being licenced at Intermediate and Full levels. 

Sure, the graph goes up, very slightly, for both those categories in that period.  It also went up slightly in the 2010-2013 period.  But two points in a much longer graph a trend does not make.  Overall, it's obvious that the licencing trend is flat, and certainly down for Foundation.  It remains to be seen whether the data for 2020 and beyond will, in fact, show an upward trend, or change to something else altogether.