The 0114 dialing code includes the whole of Sheffield, excluding the Fox House area (dialing code 01433), the Eckington area of North East Derbyshire (dialing code 01246) and the Aston, Aughton, and Ulley areas of Rotherham (dialing code 01709).
Sheffield local numbers were originally six digits long, but they became seven digits long when a new system was implemented on PhONEday in 1995.
| Region | Post-PhONEday numbering | Pre-PhONEday equivalent | Phase distributed under |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sheffield | (0114) 2xx xxxx | (0742) xxxxxx | Initial Phase |
| (0114) 3xx xxxx | n/a | First additional phase of numbers, released in 2004. | |
| (0114) 4xx xxxx | n/a | Further phase of numbers, released in 2010. |
Sheffield (0114) - 2xx - xxxx numbers have now been exhausted, so new numbers issued now begin with 3 or 4, rather than the old ones being reused.
There have reportedly been many problems involving people incorrectly dialing 01142 3xx - xxxx for 0114 3xx - xxxx numbers and therefore being connected to the wrong person or business.[1]
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Before 1965, Sheffield had 5-digit telephone numbers, with the first digit indicating the exchange area of the telephone line. Sheffield's 6-digit numbers were implemented by prefixing the 2 in the original 5-digit numbers and while most numbers were prefixed with a duplicate of the first digit (seen below), though some did not follow this pattern (as seen by the last example).[2][3]
| Exchange Area | Area Affected | Original Number System | New Number System |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3 | Hillsborough | 3xxxx | 33x-xxx |
| 4 | Brightside/Attercliffe | 4xxxx | 44x-xxx |
| 5 | Heeley/Abbeydale | 5xxxx | 55x-xxx |
| 6 | Crookes/Broomhill | 6xxxx | 66x-xxx |
| 7 | City Centre | 2xxxx | 72x-xxx |
Switching to 6-digit numbers produced 90,000 available numbers for each exchange group, providing another 450,000 available numbers after combining both phases, producing a potential 500,000 numbers in Sheffield.
Until the 1980s, Stocksbridge, Oughtibridge, and some other areas had 4-digit numbers. Within Stocksbridge and Oughtibridge people dialed only 4-digit numbers, while from Sheffield people dialed prefix 88 for Stocksbridge and prefix 86 for Oughtibridge. From Oughtibridge, people dialed 88xxxx for Stocksbridge and 9xxxxxx for Sheffield. This led to some confusion, leading people to often dial wrong numbers. During the 1980s these local areas were unified into 6-digit Sheffield numbers so that from anywhere in the Sheffield code area, 88xxxx dialed a Stocksbridge number, even from within Stocksbridge. Once the 8-prefix was merged into the full local number this released 8xxxxx numbers.[4]
Transitioning to 7-digit numbers in 1995 involved prefixing each 6-digit number with a 2. Immediately after the 1995 change, the corresponding 22x-xxxx numbers became available for allocation, followed by the 20x-xxxx and 21x-xxxx ranges, since the corresponding 0742 0xxxxx and 1xxxxx wouldn't have been issued as local numbers weren't permitted to start with a 1 or a 0. The 0114 code allows for a potential maximum of 7,990,000 local numbers to be issued, assuming the use of the entire valid range from (0114) 200-0000 to (0114) 998-9999 country-wide.[5]