UK Salary Statistics 2025

Based on ONS ASHE 2025 data — 412+ occupations, 350+ locations, 11 regions

How UK salaries work: median vs mean

When people ask "what's the average salary?", they usually mean the median — the midpoint where half of workers earn more and half earn less. The mean (arithmetic average) is dragged upward by top earners, which is why it is almost always higher than the median for any given occupation.

For career planning and salary negotiation, the median is the more useful figure. If you earn above the national median for your role, you are being paid more than most people doing the same job — a powerful position when it comes to benchmarking your worth.

National salary landscape

The ONS Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) is the gold standard for UK pay data. It covers over 300,000 employee records weighted to represent the full workforce. The 2025 release — which wagearea.com is built on — captures earnings from the pay period including April 2025.

We index salary data for 412+ occupations across 350+ local authority areas and all 11 UK regions, making it possible to compare what any job pays in any part of the country.

Regional salary differences

Geography has an enormous effect on earnings. London leads the pack across virtually every occupation, but the premium varies hugely. A software developer in London might earn 30% more than one in the North East, but a nurse's London premium could be smaller because NHS pay bands apply nationally (though London weighting and high-cost area supplements help close the gap).

The key insight is that higher salaries do not automatically mean higher living standards. A £35,000 salary in the North East — where housing, transport, and childcare are cheaper — may stretch further than £45,000 in the South East. Our cost-of-living salary guide explores this in detail.

Sector-level trends

Across the UK economy, certain sectors consistently outperform others on pay. Financial services, technology, and energy remain the highest-paying broad sectors, while hospitality, retail, and social care sit at the lower end. Within every sector there are outliers — a head chef in a fine-dining restaurant earns considerably more than the median for "chefs" as a category, and a senior data engineer outearns the median "IT professional" figure by a wide margin.

This is why occupation-level data — rather than sector-level — is essential for salary research. wagearea.com breaks salaries down to the four-digit SOC code level, which is as granular as official ONS data allows.

Year-on-year changes

Wage growth has been a headline issue in recent years, with inflation outpacing nominal pay rises for many workers. The ASHE data captures year-on-year changes in both median and mean salaries for every occupation and region. Where prior-year data is available, wagearea.com shows the change so you can see whether your profession's pay is keeping pace.

If you are preparing for a pay review or considering a career move, understanding whether salaries in your field are rising, stagnating, or falling relative to inflation is critical context. Armed with this data, you can confidently negotiate from a position of evidence, not guesswork.

How to use this data

Whether you are negotiating a raise, evaluating a job offer, or planning a career change, here is how to get the most from wagearea.com:

1. Find your occupation — search by job title and compare the national median with your current salary using the Salary Checker.
2. Compare locations — use the Compare tool to see how the same job pays in different cities.
3. Adjust for cost of living — a higher salary in a more expensive area may not translate to a better standard of living.
4. Read the salary guide — each occupation's guide page goes deeper into regional breakdowns, hourly rates, and career context.

Data source and methodology

All figures on wagearea.com come from the ONS Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) 2025, published under the Open Government Licence. ASHE is based on a 1% sample of employee jobs, drawn from HM Revenue & Customs Pay As You Earn (PAYE) records. It is the most detailed and authoritative source of earnings data in the UK.

For full details on how we process and present this data, see our methodology page.