National Volunteering Profile
Latest findings from the Scottish Household Survey (2018)
Find out how many of us volunteered in Scotland, along with the number of hours of help given and economic value of this contribution.
Scotland's profile of volunteering
48% of adults in Scotland have volunteered, that’s over 2.17 million people. This overall figure combines those who’ve volunteered formally (providing unpaid help through an organisation or group) with those who’ve volunteered informally (helping someone who is not a friend or relative) in the last year.
In 2018 in Scotland, formal and informal volunteers contributed:
361 million hours of help
150m formal volunteering hours and 211m informal volunteering hours (numbers have been rounded to the nearest half a million or 500,000.
5.5 billion to local economy
£2.3bn from formal volunteering and £3.2bn from informal volunteering (numbers have been rounded to the nearest million or 1,000,000.
Note: Data on the economic value of volunteering is only available on a 2 year basis.
The total numbers of hours volunteered along with the economic value of this contribution are calculated the following sources:
- Participation rates, frequency and intensity data from the Scottish Household Survey
- The mid year population estimates and the average Scottish weekly wage, from the National Records of Scotland.
For Local authority level data please see the Scottish Household Survey Data Explorer – SHS Data Explorer. For any further queries please contact us at research@volunteercotland.org.uk