From April 2026 onwards, the UK's main national minimum wage category, the national living wage, will rise to ***** pounds per hour, up from ***** pounds per hour in the previous financial year. This amount will apply to workers aged 21 and over, compared with 2022 and 2023 when it was only for workers aged 23 and over, and for those aged 25 and over between 2016 and 2021. The main minimum wage from 2010 to 2015 was the 21+ rate, and 22+ rate between 1999 and 2009. Evolution of the minimum wage Since its introduction in 1999, the minimum wage has had various rate categories, usually based on age. For the first five years, there were two categories, one for workers 18 to 21, and another for workers aged 22 and over. In 2004, a minimum wage for under 18s was introduced, and between 2010 and 2015 there were three rates based on age, and one for apprenticeships. Another age based-rate was added in 2016, but from 2024 onwards, the model will revert to four rate categories overall. In addition to the legal minimum wage, there is also a voluntary real living wage, which for 2024/25 is **** pounds per hour, rising to ***** pounds per hour for workers in London. Wages continue to outpace inflation in 2024 Since July 2023, wages have grown faster than inflation in the UK with December 2024 seeing regular weekly earnings grow by *** percent, compared with the CPI inflation rate of *** percent that month. For almost two years between November 2021 and June 2023, wage growth struggled to keep up with inflation, with the biggest gap occurring in October 2022 when inflation peaked at **** percent. The fall in real earnings in one of the most important factors in the UK's ongoing cost of living crisis. At the height of the crisis, around ** percent of UK households were reporting a monthly increase in their cost of living, with this falling to ** percent by March 2024.

In April 2026, the UK minimum wage for adults over the age of 21 will be 12.71 pounds per hour. For the 2026/27 financial year, there are four minimum wage categories, three of which are based on age and one for apprentice workers. Apprentices, and workers under the age of 18 will have a minimum wage of eight pounds an hour, increasing to 10.85 pounds for those aged 18 to 20. When the minimum wage was first introduced in 1999, there were just two age categories; 18 to 21, and 22 and over. This increased to three categories in 2004, four in 2010, and five between 2016 and 2023, before being reduced down to four in the most recent year. The living wage The living wage is an alternative minimum wage amount that employers in the UK can voluntarily pay their employees. It is calculated independently of the legal minimum wage and results in a higher value figure. In 2023/24, for example, the living wage was twelve pounds an hour for the UK as a whole and 13.15 for workers in London, where the cost of living is typically higher. This living wage is different from what the UK government has named the national living wage, which was 10.42 in the same financial year. Between 2011/12 and 2023/24, the living wage has increased by 4.80 pounds, while the London living wage has grown by 4.85 pounds. Wage growth cancelled-out by high inflation 2021-2023 For a long period between the middle of 2021 and late 2023, average wage growth in the UK was unable to keep up with record inflation levels, resulting in the biggest fall in disposable income since 1956. Although the UK government attempted to mitigate the impact of falling living standards through a series of cost of living payments, the situation has still been very difficult for households. After peaking at 11.1 percent in October 2022, the UK's inflation rate remained in double figures until March 2023, and did not fall to the preferred rate of two percent until May 2024. As of November 2024, regular weekly pay in the UK was growing by 5.6 percent in nominal terms, and 2.5 percent when adjusted for inflation.

Information about sample sizes, response rates, household characteristics, and expenditure uncertainty metrics for the Living Costs and Food Survey.

The voluntarily paid living wage in the United Kingdom for 2025/26 will be 13.45 pounds per hour in 2025/26, with this rising to 14.8 pounds per hour for workers in London. From April 1, 2026, the legal minimum wage for those over the age of 21 will be 12.21 pounds per hour.

People in Great Britain's experiences of and actions following increases in their costs of living, and how these differed by a range of personal characteristics.

Estimates of the number and proportion of UK employee jobs with hourly pay below the living wage, by region, work geography, local authority and parliamentary constituency, as defined by the Living Wage Foundation.

Real household disposable income per person in the United Kingdom is expected to grow by 2.6 percent in 2024/25, with disposable income growth slowing from that point onwards. In 2022/23, disposable income fell by two percent, after falling by 0.1 percent in 2021/22, and 0.3 percent in 2020/21.

Number of employers that have joined the London Living Wage Programme in London. The London Living Wage is an hourly rate of pay, currently set at £10.55, that is calculated independently to reflect the high cost of living in the capital, giving a worker in London and their family enough to afford the essentials and to save.

In October 2025, 63 percent of households in Great Britain reported that their cost of living had increased in the previous month, compared with 72 percent in April. Although the share of people reporting a cost of living increase has generally been falling since August 2022, when 91 percent of households reported an increase, the most recent figures indicate that the Cost of Living Crisis is still ongoing for many households in the UK. Crisis ligers even as inflation falls Although various factors have been driving the Cost of Living Crisis in Britain, high inflation has undoubtedly been one of the main factors. After several years of relatively low inflation, the CPI inflation rate shot up from 2021 onwards, hitting a high of 11.1 percent in October 2022. In the months since that peak, inflation has fallen to more usual levels, and was 2.5 percent in December 2024, slightly up from 1.7 percent in September. Since June 2023, wages have also started to grow at a faster rate than inflation, albeit after a long period where average wages were falling relative to overall price increases. Economy continues to be the main issue for voters Ahead of the last UK general election, the economy was consistently selected as the main issue for voters for several months. Although the Conservative Party was seen by voters as the best party for handling the economy before October 2022, this perception collapsed following the market's reaction to Liz Truss' mini-budget. Even after changing their leader from Truss to Rishi Sunak, the Conservatives continued to fall in the polls, and would go onto lose the election decisively. Since the election, the economy remains the most important issue in the UK, although it was only slightly ahead of immigration and health as of January 2025.

Detailed cost of living comparison between United Kingdom and United States

Cost of Living Index (Excl. Rent) is a relative indicator of consumer goods prices, including groceries, restaurants, transportation and utilities. Cost of Living Index does not include accommodation expenses such as rent or mortgage. If a city has a Cost of Living Index of 120, it means Numbeo has estimated it is 20% more expensive than New York (excluding rent).

Please refer further to: https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/cpi_explained.jsp for motivation and methodology.

All credits to https://www.numbeo.com .

This dataset would surely help socio-economic researchers to analyse and get deeper insights regarding the life of people country-wise.

Thanks to @andradaolteanu for the motivation! Upwards and onwards...

The proportion of staff paid below the National Living Wage, broken down by provider type.

The FCA presents the findings from a survey undertaken in January 2024 to understand the financial impact of the increased cost of living on adults across the UK. Key findings include: Since January 2023 there has been an improvement in the number of people finding it hard to manage the higher costs of living, although challenges remain for some groups. The cost of living continues to have an impact on the financial lives of some adults in the UK. In January 2024: 7.4m (14%) felt heavily burdened by their domestic bills and credit commitments 5.5m (11%) had missed any of these bills in the previous 6 months 14.6m (28%) were not coping financially or finding it difficult to cope 5.9m (11%) had no disposable income

Percentage of respondents in work earning less than the London Living Wage (LLW) taken from the ONS Annual Survey of Hours and Earning (ASHE). Data is provided by whether the employee is male or female and works full-time or part-time. Data is also provided by borough. Also includes employees earning below the UK Living Wage by region outside London. The minimum wage levels in each year are stated in the table. This dataset is one of the Greater London Authority's measures of Economic Fairness. Click here to find out more.

Employment rate of parents living with dependent children as a couple or lone parent by age of the youngest child in the UK.

Salary pay scales for Council staff. Calderdale Council is a Real Living wage employer. This means that the Council will pay a wage supplement equal to the difference between the basic hourly rate within the job evaluation grading scheme and the Real Living wage rate in place at the time, as reviewed and approved from time to time by the Council. With effect from 1 April 2025, the rate is £12.60 per hour. Also see other HR and Workforce related datasets.

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.