In April 2025, the UK minimum wage for adults over the age of 21 in will be 12.21 pounds per hour. For the 2025/26 financial year, there will be 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 7.55 pounds an hour, increasing to ten 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.

Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.

The Great Britain Historical Database has been assembled as part of the ongoing Great Britain Historical GIS Project. The project aims to trace the emergence of the north-south divide in Britain and to provide a synoptic view of the human geography of Britain at sub-county scales. Further information about the project is available on A Vision of Britain webpages, where users can browse the database's documentation system online.

The Great Britain Historical GIS Project has also produced digitised boundary data, which can be obtained from the UK Data Service Census Support service. Further information is available at census.ukdataservice.ac.uk

Main Topics:

The Great Britain Historical Database is a large database of British nineteenth and twentieth-century statistics. Where practical the referencing of spatial units has been integrated, data for different dates have been assembled into single tables.

The Great Britain Historical Database currently contains :

• Statistics from the 1861 Census and the Registrar General's reports, 1851-1861
  
• Employment statistics from the census, 1841-1931
  
• Demographic statistics from the census, 1841-1931
  
• Mortality statistics from the Registrar General's reports, 1861-1920
  
• Marriage statistics from the Registrar General's reports, 1841-1870
  
• Trade union statistics for the Amalgamated Society of Engineers (ASE), 1851-1918
  
• Trade union statistics for the Amalgamated Society of Carpenters and Joiners (ASCJ), 1863-1912
  
• Official poor law statistics, 1859-1915 and 1919-1939
  
• Wage statistics, 1845-1906
  
• Hours of work statistics, 1900-1913
  
• Small debt statistics from county courts, 1847-1913 and 1938
  

There are two tables in this part of the Great Britain Historical Database :

Wages holds wage statistics gathered by the Board of Trade Labour Department for 24 occupations in 87 towns from 1845 to 1906. Not all towns appear for all occupations.

Minedays holds monthly data on hours worked in coal-mining for between 17 and 20 coalfields from January 1900 to December 1913.

Please note: this study does not include information on named individuals and would therefore not be useful for personal family history research.

Wages in the United Kingdom decreased to 711 GBP/Week in January from 712 GBP/Week in December of 2024. This dataset provides - United Kingdom Average Weekly Wages - actual values, historical data, forecast, chart, statistics, economic calendar and news.

Average weekly earnings for the whole economy, for total and regular pay, in real terms (adjusted for consumer price inflation), UK, monthly, seasonally adjusted.

Wages in the United Kingdom increased 5.80 percent in January of 2025 over the same month in the previous year. This dataset provides the latest reported value for - United Kingdom Average Weekly Earnings Growth - plus previous releases, historical high and low, short-term forecast and long-term prediction, economic calendar, survey consensus and news.

Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.

The Great Britain Historical Database has been assembled as part of the ongoing Great Britain Historical GIS Project. The project aims to trace the emergence of the north-south divide in Britain and to provide a synoptic view of the human geography of Britain at sub-county scales. Further information about the project is available on A Vision of Britain webpages, where users can browse the database's documentation system online.

Main Topics:

Wage rates in 24 occupations in 87 towns 1845-1906.

Real Earnings Excluding Bonuses in the United Kingdom decreased to 2.10 percent in January from 2.40 percent in December of 2024. This dataset includes a chart with historical data for the United Kingdom Real Average Weekly Earnings Excluding Bonuses.

Wages in Manufacturing in the United Kingdom increased to 776 GBP/Week in January from 769 GBP/Week in December of 2024. This dataset provides - United Kingdom Average Weekly Wages in Manufacturing - actual values, historical data, forecast, chart, statistics, economic calendar and news.

Annual estimates of paid hours worked, weekly, hourly and annual earnings for UK employees by sex, and full-time and part-time, by region and four-digit Standard Occupational Classification.

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 33.2 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 31,947 pounds in 2021, but for London it was 56,431 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 2021, for example, the average earnings in the historic City of London borough were 1,138 pounds per week, compared with 588 pounds in Redbridge, a borough in the North East of London. Wages finally catch up with inflation in 2023 After the initial economic disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic subsided, wages began to steadily grow in the UK. This reached a peak in June 2021, when weekly wages for regular pay were growing at 7.3 percent, or 5.2 percent when adjusted for inflation. By that November, however, prices began to rise faster than wage growth, with inflation surging throughout 2022. In October 2022, for example, while regular pay was growing by 6.1 percent, the inflation rate had surged to 11.1 percent, Although inflation peaked in that 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 has precipitated the worst Cost of Living Crisis in the UK for a generation.

Real Earnings Including Bonuses in the United Kingdom decreased to 1.70 percent in January from 2.70 percent in December of 2024. This dataset includes a chart with historical data for the United Kingdom Real Average Weekly Earnings Including Bonuses.

Main Topics: The Great Britain Historical Database is a large database of British nineteenth and twentieth-century statistics. Where practical the referencing of spatial units has been integrated, data for different dates have been assembled into single tables. The Great Britain Historical Database currently contains :Statistics from the 1861 Census and the Registrar General's reports, 1851-1861 Employment statistics from the census, 1841-1931 Demographic statistics from the census, 1841-1931 Mortality statistics from the Registrar General's reports, 1861-1920 Marriage statistics from the Registrar General's reports, 1841-1870 Trade union statistics for the Amalgamated Society of Engineers (ASE), 1851-1918 Trade union statistics for the Amalgamated Society of Carpenters and Joiners (ASCJ), 1863-1912 Official poor law statistics, 1859-1915 and 1919-1939 Wage statistics, 1845-1906 Hours of work statistics, 1900-1913 Small debt statistics from county courts, 1847-1913 and 1938

Forecast: Wages and Salaries of Publishing in the UK 2024 - 2028 Discover more data with ReportLinker!

Annual estimates of paid hours worked and earnings for UK employees by sex, and full-time and part-time, by region and two-digit Standard Industrial Classification 2007.

Forecast: Juice Wages and Salaries in the UK 2024 - 2028 Discover more data with ReportLinker!

Forecast: Wages and Salaries of Employment Services in the UK 2024 - 2028 Discover more data with ReportLinker!

This paper models regional earnings and unemployment in the ten regions of Great Britain between 1972 and 1995, paying particular attention to their interaction and to the important influence of the housing market. In contrast to Blanchard and Katz (1992, 1997) for the United States, we find less persistence in British regional earnings differentials but greater persistence in regional unemployment rates. We find no evidence of a negative effect of the overall unemployment rate on the earnings of men in non-manual, or women in full-time, employment. However, for manual men, we find a significant elasticity of around ?0.07, comparable with Blanchflower and Oswald (1994).

Average Earnings Excluding Bonus in the United Kingdom remained unchanged at 5.90 percent in January. This dataset includes a chart with historical data for the United Kingdom Average Earnings Excluding Bonus YoY.

Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.

The Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) is one of the largest surveys of the earnings of individuals in the UK. Data on the wages, paid hours of work, and pensions arrangements of nearly one per cent of the working population are collected. Other variables relating to age, occupation and industrial classification are also available. The ASHE sample is drawn from National Insurance records for working individuals, and the survey forms are sent to their respective employers to complete.

While limited in terms of personal characteristics compared to surveys such as the Labour Force Survey, the ASHE is useful not only because of its larger sample size, but also the responses regarding wages and hours are considered to be more accurate, since the responses are provided by employers rather than from employees themselves. A further advantage of the ASHE is that data for the same individuals are collected year after year. It is therefore possible to construct a panel dataset of responses for each individual running back as far as 1997, and to track how occupations, earnings and working hours change for individuals over time. Furthermore, using the unique business identifiers, it is possible to combine ASHE data with data from other business surveys, such as the Annual Business Survey (UK Data Archive SN 7451).

The ASHE replaced the New Earnings Survey (NES, SN 6704) in 2004. NES was developed in the 1970s in response to the policy needs of the time. The survey had changed very little in its thirty-year history. ASHE datasets for the years 1997-2003 were derived using ASHE methodologies applied to NES data.

The ASHE improves on the NES in the following ways:

• the NES questionnaire allowed too much variation in employer responses, leading to wide variations in the data
• weightings have been introduced to take account of the population size (significant biases were a known problem in NES data)
• the significant numbers of employees who change jobs between the sample selection and survey reference dates are retained in the ASHE sample, whereas these were dropped from the NES

Linking to other business studies
These data contain Inter-Departmental Business Register (IDBR) reference numbers. These are anonymous but unique reference numbers assigned to business organisations. Their inclusion allows researchers to combine different business survey sources together. Researchers may consider applying for other business data to assist their research.

Observations from Northern Ireland
The ASHE data held by the UK Data Archive include very few observations from Northern Ireland. Users requiring access to Northern Ireland data are advised to contact the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency, who administer this aspect of the survey.

Local unit reference variable, luref
The local unit reference variable 'luref', is generated to indicate multiple occurrences of the same local unit for disclosure checking purposes. It is inconsistent across years and is not an IDBR reference number. It should not be used to link ASHE with other business datasets.

For Secure Lab projects applying for access to this study as well as to SN 6697 Business Structure Database and/or SN 7683 Business Structure Database Longitudinal, only postcode-free versions of the data will be made available.

Latest Edition Information
For the twenty-sixth edition (February 2025), the data file 'ashegb_2023r_2024p_pc' has been added, along with the accompanying data dictionary.

Main Topics:

The ASHE contains a small number of variables for each individual, relating to wages, hours of work, pension arrangements, and occupation and industrial classifications. There are also variables for age, gender and full/part-time status. Because the data are collected by the employer, there are also variables relating to the organisation employing the individual. These include employment size and legal status (e.g. public company). Various geography variables are included in the data files.

Forecast: Wages and Salaries of Scientific Research and Development Activities in the UK 2024 - 2028 Discover more data with ReportLinker!