Working age people in the UK

A little while back I heard the statistic that there are more people retired in the UK than there are of school age, so there will be fewer people replenishing the tax pot for pensions than there will be taking from it.

I spent a spell working for the NHS crunching such numbers in order to support health care decisions, so am familiar with the data sources, and relish any opportunity to play with spreadsheets (as previously mentioned).

So off I toddled to nchod (now part of the information centre, who seem to employ the same impenetrable website structure as the ONS) to download some figures. I grouped them by working age, et voila - there are clearly more people in the UK under the age of 19 than there are over the age of 65.  Where do politicians get their figures from? Lies, damn lies and statistics.

I guess I can stop hoping for some sort of house surfit that will make houses affordable to the likes of me...