This paper examines the male occupational structure of England and Wales between c.1817 and 1881. The creation of a new quasi-census of male occupational data for c.1817 from parish register data makes it possible, for the first time, to examine reliably the changing male occupational structure over the whole of this period and to do so both in the aggregate and at fine spatial resolution and in sectoral detail. One key result is to show that the secondary sectors’ share of adult male employment grew very little over this period. The basic feature of structural change was a relative shift from agricultural to service sector employment. The secondary sector was much larger at the beginning of the nineteenth century than has been thought hitherto. One implication is that the productivity growth of the secondary sector grew much more rapidly between c.1817 and 1841 than has been suggested hitherto. One likely consequence is that new technology made a much bigger impact on the secondary sector at the aggregate level, than the national accounts literature suggests at present. Moreover, striking tertiary sector growth was a feature of all regions of England and Wales, suggesting that the Industrial Revolution affected all parts of the country and cannot be viewed merely as a regional phenomenon, as has sometimes been argued.