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.

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.

Data on the average annual gross salary percentiles in the United Kingdom (UK) in 2020, by gender, shows that while women's average annual gross pay for the tenth percentile was around 6.8 thousand British pounds in 2020, the male average was more than twice as high in the same percentile. The female percentile with the highest annual pay averaged at 45.3 thousand British pounds, but was exceeded by the male average by 65 thousand in 2020.

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.

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.

New Earnings Survey (NES) and Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) percentile and median time series by full-time employees, full-time males and full-time females.

Full-time workers in the finance and insurance sector had the highest average annual salaries in the United Kingdom in 2025, at approximately 58,488 British pounds, with those working in accommodation and food service professions having the lowest average salary, at 28,687 pounds per year.

Comprehensive salary data for over 200 roles across all major UK industries, including percentiles and regional variations. Updated for 2025/26 tax year.

Households in the bottom decile in the United Kingdom earned, on average, ****** British pounds per year in 2023/24, compared with the top decile which earned around ******* pounds per year.

In October 2025, employees in the United Kingdom were earning a median pay of ***** British pounds per month, compared with ***** in the previous month.

Annual estimates of paid hours worked and earnings for UK employees by sex, and full-time and part-time, by age group.

Distribution of gross hourly earnings of full-time and part-time employees by sex, UK, quarterly, not seasonally adjusted. Labour Force Survey. These are official statistics in development.

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.

In 2025, full-time workers in the United Kingdom in their 40s had the highest median weekly earnings at 870 British pounds per week, while those aged 16 to 17 had the lowest weekly earnings, at 373.2 pounds per week.

The median annual earnings in the United Kingdom was 37,430 British pounds per year in 2024. Annual earnings varied significantly by region, ranging from 47,455 pounds in London to 32,960 pounds in the North East. Along with London, two other areas of the UK had median annual earnings above the UK average; South East England, and Scotland, at 39,038 pounds and 38,315 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.

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 2024 men aged between 50 and 59 were the highest full-time earners in the United Kingdom among different gender and age groups, with men of different ages consistently earning more than women.