Coronavirus: ONS data reveals jobs with highest death rates

Male security guards have one of the highest death rates according to analysis from the Office for National Statistics - with chefs, plant workers, taxi and bus drivers, and retail workers also at elevated risk.

A total of 2,494 deaths involving the coronavirus in the working age population (those aged 20 to 64 years) of England and Wales were registered up to and including April 20.

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Nearly two-thirds of these deaths were among men (1,612 deaths), with the rate of death involving Covid-19 statistically higher in men, with 9.9 deaths per 100,000 compared with 5.2 deaths per 100,000 women (882 deaths).

Compared with the rate among people of the same sex and age in England and Wales, men working in the lowest skilled occupations had the highest rate of death involving Covid-19, with 21.4 deaths per 100,000 males (225 deaths).

Men working as security guards had one of the highest rates, with 45.7 deaths per 100,000 (63 deaths).

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Men and women working in social care, a group including care workers and home carers, both had 'significantly raised' rates of death involving the virus, with rates of 23.4 deaths per 100,000 males (45 deaths) and 9.6 deaths per 100,000 females (86 deaths).

Healthcare workers, including those with jobs such as doctors and nurses, however, were not found to have higher rates of death involving Covid-19.

Among men, a number of other specific occupations were found to have raised rates of death involving the virus, including taxi drivers and chauffeurs, bus and coach drivers, chefs and sales and retail assistants.

A note with the new analysis said it did not 'prove conclusively' that the observed rates of death involving Covid-19 are necessarily caused by differences in occupational exposure, adding: "We adjusted for age, but not for other factors such as ethnic group and place of residence."