Selecting rows of data with specific text in a column?

Hi,

I have an excel sheet of household addresses and need to total up the number of households within each postcode sector.

I have columns for the address names, towns and postcodes.

I am not too sure on how I can extract this data, would I need to use a macro? Or maybe just create some kind of code within a cell to display my data?

If you need more info let me know, many thanks!

By postcode sector do you mean the first part of the postcode before the space?

Perhaps extract this to another column. If postcodes are in column D, for instance then in E2

=LEFT(D2,FIND(" ",D2)-1)

copied down column

this should extract

WC1 from WC1 2AA for example

then in F2

=IF(COUNTIF(E$2:E2,E2)=1,COUNTIF(E:E,E2),"")

copied down column

this will give you a count of each sector, against the first postcode for each sector, otherwise a blank.

To get a list without blank rows you can use advanced filter to show unique records (in column E) only