Lifestyle Report: Licensee Profile

Our survey has provided a profile of the typical licensee.

One of the striking results to emerge from the survey is how the majority of licensees are ordinary, family people just like their customers. Despite being self-employed business people they tend to live on an average sort of income and living above the shop hasn't stopped most of them having a family.

Three-quarters of respondents are men and 84 per cent are over 35, reflecting the way in which most independent licensees enter the trade late, either having worked behind the bar or having made enough cash in another industry to be able to afford a leasehold or a freehold on a pub.

While a small number, less than three per cent, are under 25, over eight per cent are in their sixties or older.

Some 58 per cent are married, and another 18 per cent live with a partner. Despite the pressures that being a publican puts on relationships, little more than eight per cent are divorced or separated. Just over two per cent are widowed and the remainder, 13 per cent, remain single.

These figures may be distorted by the fact that brewers and pub companies have traditionally sought out people in stable relationships to run their pubs, although recent years have seen more single people enter the trade. Whether operating a pub is a two-person job is a matter of debate, but attitudes these days are more flexible.

More than seven in 10 licensees questioned have children, though most stick at one or two. The average, one-and-a-half, is slightly less than the typical figure for the population as a whole.

Less than one in five have gone for the bigger family and nearly eight per cent have four kids or more.

Children aren't quite so badly suited to a pub life as some might think. Although a licensee works long hours, the times when a child needs you, in the mornings and late afternoon, either side of school or child-minder, are usually quiet in the pub. And even if they are at home, that's only a couple of flights of stairs away for most.

Kids cost money, of course, and that could be a bigger problem. A surprising 29 per cent of licensees surveyed make less than £15,000 a year. In most cases that's offset by having accommodation included, but it doesn't leave much for a playboy lifestyle.

Most publicans, in fact, take home an average income or less. Around a quarter earn between £25,000 and £50,000 and about 10 per cent above that figure.

There is a fairly substantial chunk of publicans on more than £100,000 but it's likely that these will be multiple operators. It's hard for anyone to make that kind of cash out of a single pub.

Predictably, tenants are worst off, with six in 10 making £25,000 a year or less. Lessees are slightly better off and freeholders rather more polarised, with more making less than £15,000 and more occupying the higher pay brackets.

It seems that when everything is right, and you have control of the business, running a pub is something you can make decent money at.

On the basis of these results, however, it isn't so hard to see why a large minority of licensees turn to other sources of income. Some 23 per cent make up their pay by doing other jobs, which is possible, for instance, in rural and community pubs that only open for the evening session.

Even so, a surprising nine per cent of the survey can't afford - or maybe don't need - a car.

When they can, it's the average family choice of a saloon or hatchback for four in ten, although 28 per cent have an estate or a people carrier for those trips to the cash and carry.

Seven per cent of the survey are able to splash out on a sports model or a sports utility vehicle.

The average publican who responded to the survey...​

...is male...is aged 46...is married...has 1.5 children...left school before 18...rents their pub...runs a traditional community pub...has been in their pub for at least five years...has operated at least one other pub...earns less than £25,000 a year

Read all about it​

When they have time to browse through a newspaper licensees' favourite national paper is the Daily Mail.

Thirty per cent of the survey choose the mid-market Tory tabloid with The Sun way behind on 14 per cent. Leading broadsheet the Daily Telegraph is almost as popular, then comes the Mail's arch-rival the Daily Express. Labour paper The Mirror attracts the votes of one in 10 with The Times just behind. The Independent edges out The Guardian with both on between three and four per cent.

Education​

More than half of the survey left school at 16 or earlier, another 24 per cent stayed on to take A-levels or the equivalent and 15 percent went to college or university until they were 21.

Nine per cent stayed on longer in full-time education.

Nearly all have gained a qualification of some sort, a quarter have reached A-level standard, with another 15 per cent getting an HND. Twelve per cent have a degree, with two per cent going on to post-grad levels.