Workplace Zone (WZ) centroids are point features that represent the ‘master postcodes’ for WZs. The centroid, or ‘master postcode’ was selected using an algorithm which calculates the postcode centroid within a WZ which has grid references closest to the worker-weighted centre of the DZ. These centroids / ‘master postcodes’ can be used to link WZs to other (higher level) geographies and produce a 'best-fit' match. They have been created by the National Records of Scotland (NRS), based on the WZ boundaries which were produced on behalf of NRS by the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
WZs were a new output geography for Census 2011, initially produced using workplace data from the 2011 Census for England and Wales rather than the UK as a whole. They are designed to supplement the Output Area (OA) and Super Output Area (LSOA and MSOA) / Data Zone (DZ) geographies that were introduced with the 2001 Census, and have been constructed from OAs, or sub-divisions of these called postcode-level building-blocks. While OAs are designed to contain consistent numbers of persons based on where they live, WZs are designed to contain consistent numbers of workers, based on where people work. Following publication of WZs for England and Wales, coverage was subsequently extended to include Scotland and Northern Ireland using 2011 Census data to create a UK set of WZs produced by the ONS on behalf of NRS and the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA). WZs are designed to be a more suitable output geography for publishing workplace statistics.
