This page provides a brief guide to finding the sources of Census microdata, i.e. individual records, for the constituent parts of the UK. Nominative census microdata, i.e. which include identifying information relating to individuals (such as names), are not available for censuses which took place less than 100 years ago, for reasons of confidentiality.
There is no single UK Population Census. The Census is carried out by different bodies in different parts of the UK, and there are therefore different sources for finding these data; the Scottish Census is conducted by the National Records of Scotland, the Census for England and Wales by the Office of National Statistics, and the Northern Ireland Census by the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency.
Sources of Census microdata in reverse chronological order:
N.B. for spatial / boundary data see the National Statistics Postcode Directory.
See also: Census Data (Aggregate Statistics) from Scotland & rest of the UK.
1801 to 2011
Nominative census microdata for Scotland's censuses of 1851 - 1901 (and for the rest of the UK for 1851 - 1911) have been produced as Integrated Census Microdata (the I-CeM project); academic users may apply for permission to access these on the computers of the UK Data Archive at the University of Essex. Anonymised microdata from these same datasets may be downloaded from the Integrated Census Microdata (I-CeM) website.