work and pay · the national record
What people actually earn where they live
The typical UK full time employee earned 811.20 pounds a week in April 2026, up 5.8 per cent in cash terms and about 2.7 per cent after inflation. Behind that average sits a gap of 1.88 times between the highest paid and lowest paid local authorities, measured by where people live, not where their job is.
How to read this
These figures use ASHE Table 8, place of RESIDENCE: they record what workers who live in an area earn, wherever their job is based, not what jobs located in that area pay. A commuter borough can show high resident pay while the workplace based figure for the same area looks quite different. The two geographies are not interchangeable; this page always uses place of residence. The average used throughout is the median, ONS's preferred measure of typical pay, not the mean. ASHE covers employee jobs only, so the self employed are excluded and this is not a measure of all income.
ONS ASHE Table 8, place of residence (2026 provisional, released 22 October 2026; 2025 figures shown for context are revised). Real terms change is a British Resilience Index derivation, deflated using the ONS CPIH index (2015=100), not an ONS published figure.
work and pay · the national record
Pay rose 5.8 per cent in cash terms in 2026, and about 2.7 per cent after inflation
The median full time employee living in the UK earned 811.20 pounds a week in April 2026, up 44.60 pounds in cash terms on April 2025. The ONS deflates this using its CPIH price index and reports a real terms rise of about 2.7 per cent, larger than the real terms rise of about 1.1 per cent it reported a year earlier, after a long real terms squeeze earlier in the 2020s. Hourly pay excluding overtime rose 5.7 per cent and annual pay 4.5 per cent. None of these figures include the self employed, and all of them are place of residence: what workers who live in an area take home, not what employers in that area pay.
Weekly
£811.20
+5.8 per cent on the year
Hourly
£20.88
+5.7 per cent on the year
Annual
£40,911
+4.5 per cent on the year
cash pay against prices
A cash rise of 5.8 per cent becomes a smaller real terms gain once prices are counted
The Consumer Prices Index including owner occupiers Housing costs (CPIH) rose about 3.0 per cent over the same twelve months, from an index value of 137.7 in April 2025 to 141.8 in April 2026. Dividing through, median weekly pay grew by about 2.7 per cent once inflation is stripped out. This real terms figure is a British Resilience Index derivation using the ONS CPIH index; it is not an ONS published number, though it lands within a tenth of a point of the real terms change ONS states in its own ASHE bulletin, which is a useful check on the method.
Real terms change is a British Resilience Index derivation: nominal ASHE weekly pay growth deflated by the ONS CPIH index, April 2025 to April 2026. It applies a single national price index; it does not allow for the cost of living varying by area, which ASHE does not measure.
the four nations
Scotland has the highest median pay of the four nations; Wales and Northern Ireland trail the UK average
Place of residence figures for 2026 (provisional) show Scotland with the highest median full time weekly pay of the four nations, ahead of England, with Wales and Northern Ireland both below the UK figure. Northern Ireland saw the fastest cash growth of any nation, but from a lower base, and is the one part of the UK where ASHE Table 8 does not break results down below national level; there are no district level residence based figures for Northern Ireland in this table.
pay by local authority
A gap of 1.88 times between Westminster and Nottingham
Among the 348 local authorities in Great Britain with a usable place of residence figure (350 in total; 2 suppressed, see below), median weekly full time pay for 2026 (provisional) ranges from 1238.40 pounds in Westminster to 657.80 pounds in Nottingham, a gap of 1.88 times. The highest paying areas are dominated by London boroughs and the London commuter belt, where many residents travel to well paid jobs elsewhere. The lowest paying areas include Nottingham, Leicester, Mansfield and Boston in the East Midlands, Pendle and Blackburn with Darwen in Lancashire, and Sunderland and South Tyneside in the North East. These are place of residence figures: they describe what residents earn, not what local employers pay.
Highest median weekly pay
£32.50 an hour · £66,106 a year · 22 per cent on the year
£31.24 an hour · £60,777 a year · 1.3 per cent on the year
£31.21 an hour · £58,502 a year · 10.8 per cent on the year
£31.54 an hour · £57,962 a year · 15.1 per cent on the year
£28.39 an hour · £58,540 a year · 19.6 per cent on the year
£29.60 an hour · £57,893 a year · 5.6 per cent on the year
£30.06 an hour · £58,559 a year · 7.9 per cent on the year
£28.98 an hour · £56,974 a year · 18.5 per cent on the year
£29.02 an hour · £55,383 a year · 9.4 per cent on the year
£28.83 an hour · £54,521 a year · 6.4 per cent on the year
Lowest median weekly pay
£16.65 an hour · £32,391 a year · 4.1 per cent on the year
£17.34 an hour · £31,923 a year · 6.2 per cent on the year
£16.31 an hour · £34,882 a year · 3.5 per cent on the year
£16.89 an hour · £33,607 a year · 4.9 per cent on the year
£17.30 an hour · £33,968 a year · 3.1 per cent on the year
£16.18 an hour · £34,910 a year · 8.4 per cent on the year
£17.71 an hour · £35,463 a year · -2.2 per cent on the year
£17.51 an hour · £34,555 a year · 3.3 per cent on the year
£17.47 an hour · £33,561 a year · 1.8 per cent on the year
£18.10 an hour · £34,080 a year · 3.9 per cent on the year
Place of residence, median gross weekly pay, full time employees, 2026 (provisional). 348 of 350 local authorities had a usable figure; 2 (City of London, Isles of Scilly) were suppressed because their coefficient of variation reached 20 per cent or more. ONS itself withholds estimates above 20 per cent as unreliable; City of London sits exactly on that line, so its figure is not allowed to rank on this page.
2 of 350 local authorities are excluded from the league because their estimate is unreliable (a coefficient of variation of 20 per cent or more): City of London and Isles of Scilly. They are shown as "-" rather than as a number.
questions raised by this data
What do these figures tell us, and what do they not?
- 1.
Why use place of residence rather than place of work? Because the question this page asks is what people who live somewhere actually earn. A commuter area's workplace based figure can look ordinary while its resident population earns well by travelling elsewhere for work, and vice versa for areas that host well paid employers but whose staff commute in from outside.
- 2.
Is a 2.7 per cent real terms rise a genuine recovery? It follows a real terms rise of about 1.1 per cent in 2025 and a squeeze through 2022 and 2023, but it comes after a long period in which typical pay barely kept pace with prices. A couple of years of real growth do not undo that.
- 3.
Does the local authority league table reflect cost of living as well as pay? No. Westminster tops the pay table and London boroughs fill most of the top ten; nominal pay and living costs both run higher there. This page does not adjust local pay for local prices.
- 4.
What is missing for the self employed? ASHE is built from PAYE records, so it excludes the self employed and anyone not on an employer's payroll. In areas with a large self employed population, this page will understate how the whole working population is doing.
- 5.
Why is there no local authority breakdown for Northern Ireland? ASHE Table 8 publishes a Northern Ireland total but does not break it down by district council, unlike England, Scotland and Wales. This is a gap in the source data, not a choice made on this page.
Sources & method
Data provenance
- ONS Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE), Table 8: place of residence, 2026 provisional ↗· Open Government Licence v3.0
- ONS Employee earnings in the UK bulletin, 2026 ↗· Open Government Licence v3.0
- ONS CPIH INDEX 00: ALL ITEMS 2015=100 (series L522, dataset MM23) ↗· Open Government Licence v3.0
Caveats & data notes
- These are place of residence figures (ASHE Table 8): what people who live in an area earn, wherever they work. ASHE also publishes place of work figures, which differ sharply for commuter areas, especially inner London. The two geographies are not interchangeable and this page never mixes them.
- The average used throughout is the median, ONS's preferred measure because it is not skewed by a small number of very high earners. Figures for the mean are published by ONS but are not used on this page.
- ASHE figures carry a coefficient of variation (CV) quality flag. Estimates with a CV above 20 per cent are withheld by ONS as unreliable; this page shows those as a dash. 2 of 350 local authorities are left out of the weekly pay league on this basis: City of London, Isles of Scilly. Isles of Scilly is withheld by ONS; City of London is published by ONS with a CV of exactly 20 per cent, and this page treats an estimate on that line as unreliable (its published median is 1,669.50 pounds a week, which would otherwise rank first).
- ASHE covers employee jobs only, built from PAYE records. It excludes the self employed entirely and is not a measure of all personal or household income.
- 2026 estimates are provisional; 2025 estimates shown for context have been revised. Provisional figures can change when ONS finalises them the following year.
- Real terms change is a British Resilience Index derivation, not an ONS figure: nominal ASHE pay growth deflated by the ONS CPIH index at national UK level. It does not allow for prices varying by area, and is not applied to the local authority league table, which shows cash figures only.
- ASHE Table 8 does not break Northern Ireland down by district council; only a single national Northern Ireland figure is available in this table.
- Annual percentage change figures at local authority level compare two independent annual samples and can be volatile for smaller authorities; they are not adjusted for changes in the composition of the local workforce.
Every figure on this page traces to its official source. Share it as it stands.
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