The median annual earnings in the United Kingdom was 39,039 British pounds per year in 2025. Annual earnings varied significantly by region, ranging from 49,692 pounds in London to 34,403 pounds in the North East. Along with London, only South East England and Scotland had earnings above the UK average, at 39,983 pounds and 39,719 pounds respectively. Regional Inequality in the UK Various other indicators highlight the degree of regional inequality in the UK, especially between London and the rest of the country. Productivity in London, as measured by output per hour, was 26.2 percent higher than the UK average. By comparison, every other UK region, except the South East, fell below the UK average for productivity. In gross domestic product per head, London was also an outlier. The average GDP per head in the UK was just over 37,000 pounds in 2023, but for London it was almost 64,000 pounds. Again, the South East's GDP per head was slightly above the UK average, with every other region below it. Within London itself, there is also a great degree of inequality. In 2023, for example, the average earnings in Kensington and Chelsea were 964 pounds per week, compared with 675 pounds in Barking and Dagenham. Wages continue to grow in 2025 In March 2025, weekly wages in the UK were growing by around 5.6 percent, or 1.8 percent when adjusted for inflation. For almost two years, wages have grown faster than inflation after a long period where prices were rising faster than wages between 2021 and 2023. This was due to a sustained period of high inflation in the UK, which peaked in October 2022 at 11.1 percent. Although inflation started to slow the following month, it wasn't until June 2023 that wages started to outpace inflation. By this point, the damage caused by high energy and food inflation had led to the the worst Cost of Living Crisis in the UK for a generation.

The median annual earnings for full-time employees in the United Kingdom was just over 39,000 British pounds in 2025, compared with 37,400 pounds in the previous year. At the start of the provided time period, in 1999, the average full-time salary in the UK was 17,800 pounds per year, with median earnings exceeding 20,000 pounds per year in 2002, and 30,000 by 2019. Wages continue to grow faster than inflation in 2025 Between November 2021 and July 2023 inflation was higher than wage growth in the UK, with wages still outpacing inflation as of March 2025. At the peak of the recent wave of high inflation in October 2022, the CPI inflation rate reached a 41-year-high of 11.1 percent, wages were growing much slower at 6.1 percent. Since that peak, inflation remained persistently high for several months, only dropping below double figures in April 2023, when inflation was 8.7 percent, down from 10.1 percent in the previous month. For 2023 as a whole, the average annual rate of inflation was 7.3 percent but fell to 2.5 percent in 2024, but is forecast to increase to 3.2 percent in 2025. Highest and lowest-paid occupations As of 2023, the highest-paid occupation in the UK was that of Chief Executives and Senior Officials, who had an average weekly pay of approximately, 1,576 pounds. By contrast, the lowest-paid occupation that year was that of retail cashiers, and check-out operators, who earned approximately 383 pounds a week. For industry sectors as a whole, people who worked full-time in the electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning supply sector had the highest average earnings, at 955 pounds a week, compared with 505 pounds a week in the accommodation and food services sector, the lowest average earnings in 2023.

Full-time workers in London earned an average salary of around 25.4 British pounds an hour, compared with workers in North East England, who only earned an average of 17.24 pounds an hour, the highest and lowest average hourly wages in the United Kingdom respectively.

Gross weekly and hourly earnings by level of occupation, UK, quarterly, not seasonally adjusted. Labour Force Survey. These are official statistics in development.

In 2025, the average annual full-time salary for men in the United Kingdom was 41,832 British pounds, compared with 35,670 pounds for women, a difference of 6,162 pounds. In the previous year, men earned an average annual salary of 40,053, compared with women who earned 34,001.

In 2025, the average annual full-time earnings for the top ten percent of earners in the United Kingdom was more than 76,900 British pounds, compared with 23,990 for the bottom ten percent of earners. As of this year, the average annual earnings for all full-time employees was over 39,000 pounds, up from 37,400 pounds in the previous year. Strong wage growth continues in 2025 As of February 2025, wages in the UK were growing by approximately 5.9 percent compared with the previous year, with this falling to 5.6 percent if bonus pay is included. When adjusted for inflation, regular pay without bonuses grew by 2.1 percent, with overall pay including bonus pay rising by 1.9 percent. While UK wages have now outpaced inflation for almost two years, there was a long period between 2021 and 2023 when high inflation in the UK was rising faster than wages, one of the leading reasons behind a severe cost of living crisis at the time. UK's gender pay gap falls in 2024 For several years, the difference between average hourly earnings for men and women has been falling, with the UK's gender pay gap dropping to 13.1 percent in 2024, down from 27.5 percent in 1997. When examined by specific industry sectors, however, the discrepancy between male and female earnings can be much starker. In the financial services sector, for example, the gender pay gap was almost 30 percent, with professional, scientific and technical professions also having a relatively high gender pay gap rate of 20 percent.

Gross weekly earnings of full-time employees by region, UK, quarterly, not seasonally adjusted. Labour Force Survey. These are official statistics in development.

Graph and download economic data for Average Weekly Earnings Per Person in the United Kingdom (AWEPPUKQ) from Q1 1919 to Q4 2016 about academic data, United Kingdom, earnings, average, and per capita.

Annual estimates of paid hours worked and earnings for UK employees by sex, and full-time and part-time, by home-based region to local and unitary authority level.

Annual estimates of paid hours worked and earnings for UK employees by sex, and full-time and part-time, by region, and public and private sector, and non-profit bodies and mutual associations. Hourly and weekly estimates are provided for the pay period that included a specified date in April. They relate to employees on adult rates of pay, whose earnings for the survey pay period were not affected by absence. Estimates for 2020 and 2021 include employees who have been furloughed under the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS). Annual estimates are provided for the tax year that ended on 5th April in the reference year. They relate to employees on adult rates of pay who have been in the same job for more than a year.

Context

Demand for houses has exploded in the UK in the last two years due to the pandemic. As a result, it feels like it is becoming more difficult for young people to afford to buy a house in the near future. I wanted to collect data to see if this sentiment is backed up by numbers.

Content

In this folder you will find the average house price in the UK between between 1975 and 2020, the median wage in the UK between 1999 and 2020. Both of these metrics have been adjusted by inflation up to 2020.

This folder also contains a table containing data on the wage gap in 2021, in the UK and by age group.

Sources

Statista: https://www.statista.com/statistics/802183/annual-pay-employees-in-the-uk/ and https://www.statista.com/statistics/1002964/average-full-time-annual-earnings-in-the-uk/.

allAgents: https://www.allagents.co.uk/house-prices-adjusted/.

Bank of England: https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/monetary-policy/inflation/inflation-calculator.

In September 2025, the top one percent of earners in the United Kingdom received an average pay of 16,212 British pounds per month, compared with the bottom ten percent of earners who earned around 855 pounds a month.

Full-time workers in London earned an average weekly salary of 958.2 British pounds a week in 2025, which was by far the highest of any region of the United Kingdom. The region with the lowest average salary was North East England, at 681.2 pounds a week.

This dataset provides information about earnings of employees who are working in an area, who are on adult rates and whose pay for the survey pay-period was not affected by absence.

Tables provided here include total gross weekly earnings, and full time weekly earnings with breakdowns by gender, by borough and UK region.

Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) is based on a sample of employee jobs taken from HM Revenue & Customs PAYE records. Information on earnings and hours is obtained in confidence from employers. ASHE does not cover the self-employed nor does it cover employees not paid during the reference period.

The earnings information presented relates to gross pay before tax, National Insurance or other deductions, and excludes payments in kind.

The confidence figure is the coefficient of variation (CV) of that estimate. The CV is the ratio of the standard error of an estimate to the estimate itself and is expressed as a percentage. The smaller the coefficient of variation the greater the accuracy of the estimate. The true value is likely to lie within +/- twice the CV.

Results for 2003 and earlier exclude supplementary surveys. In 2006 there were a number of methodological changes made. For further details goto : http://www.nomisweb.co.uk/articles/341.aspx.
The headline statistics for ASHE are based on the median rather than the mean. The median is the value below which 50 per cent of employees fall. It is ONS's preferred measure of average earnings as it is less affected by a relatively small number of very high earners and the skewed distribution of earnings. It therefore gives a better indication of typical pay than the mean.

Survey data from a sample frame, use caution if using for performance measurement and trend analysis
'#' These figures are suppressed as statistically unreliable.
! Estimate and confidence interval not available since the group sample size is zero or disclosive (0-2).

Furthermore, data from Abstract of Regional Statistics, New Earnings Survey and ASHE have been combined to create long run historical series of full-time weekly earnings data for London and Great Britain, stretching back to 1965, and is broken down by sex.

Update 29-04-2020: The data is now split into two files based on the variable collection frequency (monthly and yearly). Additional variables added: area size in hectares, number of jobs in the area, number of people living in the area.

Context

I have been inspired by Xavier and his work on Barcelona to explore the city of London! 🇬🇧 💂

Content

The datasets is primarily centered around the housing market of London. However, it contains a lot of additional relevant data: - Monthly average house prices - Yearly number of houses - Yearly number of houses sold - Yearly percentage of households that recycle - Yearly life satisfaction - Yearly median salary of the residents of the area - Yearly mean salary of the residents of the area - Monthly number of crimes committed - Yearly number of jobs - Yearly number of people living in the area - Area size in hectares

The data is split by areas of London called boroughs (a flag exists to identify these), but some of the variables have other geographical UK regions for reference (like England, North East, etc.). There have been no changes made to the data except for melting it into a long format from the original tables.

Acknowledgements

The data has been extracted from London Datastore. It is released under UK Open Government License v2 and v3. The underlining datasets can be found here: https://data.london.gov.uk/dataset/uk-house-price-index https://data.london.gov.uk/dataset/number-and-density-of-dwellings-by-borough https://data.london.gov.uk/dataset/subjective-personal-well-being-borough https://data.london.gov.uk/dataset/household-waste-recycling-rates-borough https://data.london.gov.uk/dataset/earnings-place-residence-borough https://data.london.gov.uk/dataset/recorded_crime_summary https://data.london.gov.uk/dataset/jobs-and-job-density-borough https://data.london.gov.uk/dataset/ons-mid-year-population-estimates-custom-age-tables

Cover photo by Frans Ruiter from Unsplash

Inspiration

The dataset lends itself for extensive exploratory data analysis. It could also be a great supervised learning regression problem to predict house price changes of different boroughs over time.

This dataset provides information about earnings of employees who are working in an area, who are on adult rates and whose pay for the survey pay-period was not affected by absence. Tables provided here include total gross weekly earnings, and full time weekly earnings with breakdowns by gender, and annual median, mean and lower quartile earnings by borough and UK region. These are provided both in nominal and real terms. Real earnings figures are on sheets labelled "real", are in 2016 prices, and calculated by applying ONS’s annual CPI index series for April to ASHE data. Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) is based on a sample of employee jobs taken from HM Revenue & Customs PAYE records. Information on earnings and hours is obtained in confidence from employers. ASHE does not cover the self-employed nor does it cover employees not paid during the reference period. The earnings information presented relates to gross pay before tax, National Insurance or other deductions, and excludes payments in kind. The confidence figure is the coefficient of variation (CV) of that estimate. The CV is the ratio of the standard error of an estimate to the estimate itself and is expressed as a percentage. The smaller the coefficient of variation the greater the accuracy of the estimate. The true value is likely to lie within +/- twice the CV. Results for 2003 and earlier exclude supplementary surveys. In 2006 there were a number of methodological changes made. For further details goto : http://www.nomisweb.co.uk/articles/341.aspx. The headline statistics for ASHE are based on the median rather than the mean. The median is the value below which 50 per cent of employees fall. It is ONS's preferred measure of average earnings as it is less affected by a relatively small number of very high earners and the skewed distribution of earnings. It therefore gives a better indication of typical pay than the mean. Survey data from a sample frame, use caution if using for performance measurement and trend analysis '#' These figures are suppressed as statistically unreliable. ! Estimate and confidence interval not available since the group sample size is zero or disclosive (0-2). Furthermore, data from Abstract of Regional Statistics, New Earnings Survey and ASHE have been combined to create long run historical series of full-time weekly earnings data for London and Great Britain, stretching back to 1965, and is broken down by sex.

This dataset provides information about earnings of employees who are working in an area, who are on adult rates and whose pay for the survey pay-period was not affected by absence. Tables provided here include total hourly earnings (excluding overtime), with breakdowns by gender, and full-time/part-time status, with median, mean and earnings distribution for the London region. These are provided annually in nominal terms dating from 1997. The earnings information presented relates to pay before tax, National Insurance or other deductions. These National Statistics are produced to high professional standards and released according to the arrangements approved by the UK Statistics Authority. The Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) provides information about the levels, distribution and make-up of earnings and hours worked for employees in all industries and occupations. ASHE is based on a 1% sample of employee jobs taken from HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) Pay As You Earn (PAYE) records. Information on earnings and hours is obtained from employers and treated confidentially. ASHE does not cover the self-employed nor does it cover employees not paid during the reference period. Further information is available on the ONS website.

About the dataset This dataset uses information from the DWP benefit system to provide estimates of children living in poverty for wards in London. In order to be counted in this dataset, a family must have claimed Child Benefit and at least one other household benefit (Universal Credit, tax credits or Housing Benefit) during the year. The numbers are calibrated to the Households Below Average Income (HBAI) dataset used to provide the government's headline poverty statistics. The definition of relative low income is living in a household with equivalised* income before housing costs (BHC) below 60% of contemporary national median income. The income measure includes contributions from earnings, state support and pensions. Further detail on the estimates of dependent children living in relative low income, including alternative geographical breakdowns and additional variables, such as age of children, family type and work status are available from DWP's statistical tabulation tool Stat-Xplore. Minor adjustments to the data have been applied to guard against the identification of individual claimants. This dataset replaced the DWP children in out-of-work benefit households and HMRC children in low income families local measure releases. This dataset includes estimates for all wards in London of numbers of dependent children living in relative low income families for each financial year from 2014/15 to the latest available (2022/23). The figures for the latest year are provisional and are subject to minor revision when the next dataset is released by DWP. Headlines Number of children The number of dependent children living in relative low income across London, rose from below 310,000 in the financial year ending 2015 to over 420,000 in the financial year ending 2020, but has decreased since then to below 350,000, which is well below the number for financial year ending 2018. While many wards in London have followed a similar pattern, the numbers of children in low income families in some wards have fallen more sharply, while the numbers in other wards have continued to grow. Proportion of children in each London ward Ward population sizes vary across London, the age profile of that population also varies and both the size and make-up of the population can change over time, so in order to make more meaningful comparisons between wards or over time, DWP have also published rates, though see note below regarding caution when using these figures. A dependent child is anyone aged under 16; or aged 16 to 19 in full-time non-advanced education or in unwaged government training. Ward level estimates for the total number of dependent children are not available, so percentages cannot be derived. Ward level estimates for the percentage of children under 16 living in low income families are usually published by DWP but, in its latest release, ward-level population estimates were not available at the time, so no rates were published. To derive the rates in this dataset, the GLA has used the ONS's latest ward-level population estimates (official statistics in development). Percentages for 2021/22 are calculated using the 2021 mid year estimates, while percentages for 2022/23 are calculated using the 2022 mid year estimates. As these are official statistics in development, rates therefore need to be treated with some caution. Notes *equivalised income is adjusted for household size and composition in order to compare living standards between households of different types.