Earnings and employment from Pay As You Earn Real Time Information, UK: August 2024

• Early estimates for July 2024 indicate that the number of payrolled employees rose by 0.8% compared with July 2023, a rise of 252,000 employees.

• This annual increase was largest in the health and social work sector, a rise of 163,000 employees.

• Payrolled employment increased by 24,000 employees (0.1%) in July 2024 when compared with June 2024; figures for July should be treated as provisional estimates and are likely to be revised when more data are received next month.

• UK payrolled employee growth for June 2024 compared with May 2024 has been revised from an increase of 16,000 reported in the last bulletin, to an increase of 14,000; this is because of the incorporation of additional real time information (RTI) submissions into the statistics, which takes place every publication and reduces the need for imputation.

• Early estimates for July 2024 indicate that median monthly pay increased by 5.6% compared with July 2023.

• Annual growth in median pay in July 2024 was highest in the other service activities sector, with an increase of 8.4%, and lowest in the public administration and defence sector, with a decrease of 2.4%; the decrease in the public administration and defence sector reflects the comparison with July 2023 when a pay settlement consisting of a one-off cost of living payment and a backdated pay-increase was paid to all civil servants.

About the data in this release

Early estimates for July 2024 are provided to give an indication of the likely level of employees as well as median pay in the latest period. These early estimates are, on average, based on around 85% of information being available. They are of lower quality and will be subject to revision in next month’s release when between 98% and 99% of data will be available. A revisions triangle is available for employees and median pay at the UK level.

Statistics in this release are based on people who are employed in at least one job paid through Pay As You Earn (PAYE), and monthly estimates reflect the average of such people for each day of the calendar month. These estimates are formed using a methodology for monthly earnings and employment estimates designed to align with international guidelines for labour market statistics.

Early estimates for July 2024 indicate that there were 30.4 million payrolled employees (Figure 1), a rise of 0.8% compared with the same period of the previous year. This is a rise of 252,000 employees over the 12-month period. Compared with the previous month, the number of payrolled employees increased by 0.1 % in July 2024, an increase of 24,000 people.

Note, this monthly change should be treated as provisional, because it is based on an early estimate of July 2024. More information on revisions can be found in Section 10: Data sources and quality.

When comparing the number of payrolled employees in June 2024 with the previous month, the number showed no change at 0.0%. This is revised down from the early estimate of a 0.1% increase reported in our previous bulletin, Earnings and employment from Pay As You Earn Real Time Information, UK: July 2024.

Annual growth in the number of employees remained broadly within a range of 1.0% to 1.5% from mid-2016 until 2019. Growth rates before mid-2016 were higher than 1.5% (Figure 2).

Starting around early 2019, employee growth began a slight downward trend. However, employee growth slowed more substantially past March 2020, coinciding with the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, becoming negative in April 2020.

At the start of 2021, growth rates began to recover, and remained high as the labour market continued to recover from the effects of the pandemic. From April 2022 the annual growth rate has been falling. Through 2022 this fall would have been partially caused by the comparison with the increase in employee numbers from March 2021, which levelled off as we no longer compared against this higher baseline. However, growth rates then continued to slow through 2023.

Early estimates for July 2024 indicate that median monthly pay was £2,396, an increase of 5.6% compared with the same period of the previous year.

Following a general trend of increasing pay growth between mid-2015 and mid-2018, pay growth tended to fluctuate around 3.6%, until 2020 when it became negative. This coincided with the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and related economic and policy responses. From June 2020 median pay growth became positive again. Through 2022 the growth rate of median pay continued to increase in line with pre-pandemic trends, but with increasing volatility in late 2022 and into 2023. This pace of growth has slowed in 2024.

Pay growth in June 2024 fell sharply. Part of this fall is likely to be because of the comparison with June 2023. The UK estimate for June 2023 was inflated by pay settlements made in the health sector, one of the sectors with the largest amount of payrolled employees. In the flash estimate for July 2024, pay growth has increased but remains low compared with 2024 trends. This may be because of further comparisons with values affected by pay settlements in the public administration sector last year. More detail on this is available in Section 6: Industry data.

In the three months to June 2024, the 10th percentile of the monthly pay distribution was £788, the 90th percentile was £5,504 and the 99th percentile was £15,650.

The regional figures in this bulletin are based on where employees live and not the location of their place of work. They include data for July 2024, and cover Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics (NUTS): NUTS1, NUTS2 and NUTS3 regions.

Numbers of payrolled employees in the UK for the regions ranged from 808,000 in Northern Ireland, to 4,370,000 in London in July 2024 (Figure 5).

London and Northern Ireland experienced higher growth than the UK average between January 2017 and early 2020, while the North East and Scotland experienced lower growth than the UK overall. Employee numbers within NUTS1, NUTS2, and NUTS3 regions are available in the accompanying datasets.

Figure 5: Regional employee growth fell across the UK over 2020 and 2021, but subsequently recovered across all regions

Percentage change on same month in previous year, seasonally adjusted, UK, January 2017 to July 2024

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Notes:

1. The latest period is based on early data and therefore is more likely to be subject to slightly more substantial revisions. 

Comparing July 2024 with the same period of the previous year for NUTS1 regions, changes in payrolled employees ranged from the highest being a 2.3% increase in Northern Ireland, to the lowest being a 0.5% increase in London.

Examining NUTS3 regions, Westminster experienced a decrease of 2.6% in payrolled employees in comparison with July 2023, and Ards and North Down experienced an increase of 2.9% (Figure 6).

Figure 6: Growth in payrolled employees varies across the UK

Percentage change on same month in previous year, seasonally adjusted, UK, NUTS3 level, July 2024

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Notes:

1. The latest period is based on early data and therefore is more likely to be subject to slightly more substantial revisions.  

Median pay across the NUTS3 regions of the UK in July 2024 ranged from £2,070 in Isle of Wight, to £3,665 in Wandsworth (Figure 7).

Inner London generally differs from Outer London, with median pay ranging from £2,381 in Enfield to £3,665 in Wandsworth. Median pay in July 2024 for London as a whole was £2,837.

Pay figures in the accompanying tables for regions in Northern Ireland in May and June 2024 will include the effects of the Northern Ireland Civil Servants pay settlements. The Northern Ireland Civil Service were awarded a consolidated pay rise as well as a one-off payment of £1,500 to those eligible. The pay rise was also backdated to August 2023. This award was received by weekly paid civil servants in May 2024 and by monthly paid civil servants in June 2024.

Figure 7: Median pay varies across the UK

Median pay, seasonally adjusted, UK, NUTS3 level, July 2024

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Notes:

1. The latest period is based on early data and therefore is more likely to be subject to slightly more substantial revisions. 

The industrial sectors in this bulletin are based on the UK Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) codes, as defined by the Office for National Statistics (ONS). These codes have been determined from both the most recent Inter-Departmental Business Register (IDBR) and data from Companies House for each Pay As You Earn (PAYE) enterprise. The findings from the 14 largest sectors are presented. The seven smaller sectors have been removed from the bulletin for presentational purposes, but their estimates are available in the accompanying datasets.

The three largest sectors – health and social work, wholesale and retail, and education – account for around 40% of UK employees. These three sectors combined with administrative and support services; professional, scientific and technical; manufacturing; and accommodation and food service activities account for around 70% of UK employees.

Since January 2017, employee growth has not been even across sectors (Figure 8). Sectors such as construction, transportation and storage, and information and communication experienced higher growth than the UK average between January 2017 and early 2020. Sectors such as manufacturing, and wholesale and retail experienced lower growth than the UK overall.

All sectors highlighted experienced a decrease in employee growth around April 2020, with the smallest decrease being in health and social work. Public administration and defence, and health and social work saw early recoveries in their growth rates, as did administrative and support services, and education from early 2021 onwards.

When comparing early estimates for July 2024 with the same period of the previous year, percentage changes in payrolled employees ranged from negative 3.6% in accommodation and food service activities, to positive 5.3% in public administration and defence.

Figure 8: Employee growth has been very different across sectors

Percentage change on same month in previous year, seasonally adjusted, UK, January 2017 to July 2024

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Notes:

1. The latest period is based on early data and therefore is more likely to be subject to slightly more substantial revisions. 

The increase in payrolled employees between July 2023 and July 2024 was largest in the health and social work sector (a rise of 163,000 employees) and smallest in the accommodation and food service activities sector (a fall of 80,000 employees).

Median pay in July 2024 across the highlighted sectors ranged from £1,271 in the accommodation and food service activities sector, to £3,883 in finance and insurance (Figure 10).

Compared with the same month in the previous year, median pay grew fastest in the other service activities sector, at positive 8.4% (Figure 11), and slowest in the public administration and defence sector, at negative 2.4%.

The negative pay growth in the latest month in the public administration and defence sector will reflect the comparison with July 2023, when civil servants received a pay settlement including a one-off cost-of-living payment worth up to £1,500.

Similarly, negative growth in June 2024 in the health and social care sector will reflect the comparison with June 2023, when NHS workers started to receive a pay rise following an agreed pay offer from the government to eligible workers on the Agenda for Change contract. As well as a consolidated pay rise of 5%, this also included the value of this pay rise backdated to April 2023, as well as a one-off bonus worth at least £1,250 per person.

Estimates of mean pay for each sector are available in the accompanying datasets.

The age figures in this bulletin are calculated based on an individual’s age at the time they receive a payment.

Of the 30.4 million payrolled employees in the UK in July 2024, 94.5% are aged 18 to 64 years.

Between July 2023 and July 2024, there was a decrease of 83,000 payrolled employees aged under 25 years. During the same period, payrolled employees aged 35 to 49 years increased by 148,000.

Median pay in July 2024 ranged from £414 for those aged under 18 years to £2,790 for those aged 35 to 49 years (Figure 13). Overall, median pay is higher in the central age bands, of those studied.

It is also possible for suitable applicants to access a sample of RTI data through HMRC’s Datalab. More information and how to apply for access to HMRC data can be found here.

Median monthly pay

Median monthly pay shows what a person in the middle of all employees would earn each month. The median pay is generally considered to be a more accurate reflection of the “average wage” because it discounts the extremes at either end of the scale.

National Minimum Wage and National Living Wage

The National Minimum Wage (NMW) is a minimum amount per hour that most workers in the UK are entitled to be payrolled. There are different rates of minimum wage depending on a worker’s age and whether they are an apprentice. The NMW applies to employees aged 16 to 20 years. The government’s National Living Wage (NLW) was introduced on 1 April 2016 and currently applies to employees aged 21 years and over. See current and previous rates for the NMW and NLW on the government website.

Pay As You Earn

Pay As You Earn (PAYE) is the system employers and pension providers use to take Income Tax and National Insurance contributions before they pay wages or pensions to employees and pensioners. It was introduced in 1944 and is now the way most employees pay Income Tax in the UK. This publication relates to employees only and not pensioners.

Data source and collection

The data for this release come from HM Revenue and Customs’ (HMRC’s) Pay As You Earn (PAYE) Real Time Information (RTI) system. They cover the whole population rather than a sample of people or companies, and they will allow for more detailed estimates of the population. Our statistical practice is regulated by the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR). OSR sets the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics that all producers of official statistics should adhere to. You are welcome to contact us directly with any comments about how we meet these standards by emailing RTI Statistics. Alternatively, you can contact OSR by emailing regulation@statistics.gov.uk or via the OSR website.

Coverage

This publication covers employees payrolled by employers only. It does not cover self-employment income or income from other sources such as pensions, property rental and investments. Where individuals have multiple sources of income, only income from employers is included.

The figures in this release are for the period July 2014 to July 2024 and are seasonally adjusted.

Upcoming changes

Following the UK’s withdrawal from the EU, a replacement to the Eurostat geographical classification NUTS regions has been created. The UK-managed classification of International Territorial Levels (ITLs) will replace the NUTS classification in future publications.

Each year we review our seasonal adjustment model to make sure it is line with best practice and incorporates the most recent data available. After a delay in updating the model last year because of coding issues, we aim to update seasonal adjustment parameters in September’s publication.

Please contact us by email if you would like to offer feedback on how the contents can be improved in the future.

Methodology

Our accompanying methodology article contains more information on the calendarisation and imputation methodologies used in this bulletin, alongside comparisons with other earnings and employment statistics and possible quality improvements in the future.

Pre-release data

HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) grants pre-release access to official statistics publications. As this is a joint release, and in accordance with the HMRC policy, pre-release access has been granted to a number of people to enable the preparation of statistical publications and ministerial briefing. Further details, including a list of those granted access to official statistics by HMRC, can be found on their website.

Status of Official Statistics in Development

Official statistics in development are official statistics that are undergoing a development. They were previously called "experimental statistics". In June 2023, the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) published an assessment report of HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) and Office for National Statistics (ONS) statistics on earnings and employment from Pay As You Earn Real Time Information (PAYE RTI). HMRC and the ONS welcome OSR's assessment report and have developed an action plan focusing on the six requirements.

This is a joint release between HMRC and the ONS.

Strengths of the data

As Pay As You Earn (PAYE) Real Time Information (RTI) data cover the whole population, rather than a sample of people or companies, we are able to use these to produce estimates for geographic areas and other more detailed breakdowns of the population.

The methods for producing such breakdowns are under development and we expect to include further statistics in a future release. These statistics can help inform decision-making across the country. They also have the potential to provide more timely estimates than existing measures.

These statistics also have the potential to replace some of those based on surveys, which could reduce the burden on businesses needing to fill in statistical surveys.

Industry Sector Classifications

The industrial sectors in this bulletin are based on the UK Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) codes, as defined by the ONS. These codes have been determined from both the most recent Inter-Departmental Business Register (IDBR) and data from Companies House for each PAYE enterprise.

Large enterprises that cover multiple SIC codes are classified into a single SIC code based on the relative number of employees in each SIC code. Changes to the proportion of employees across SIC codes in large enterprises can result in the enterprise being reclassified to a different SIC code. To obtain the SIC code we link to the most recent quarterly versions of the IDBR. Once a year when we refresh data for the whole series, the IDBR link is refreshed using the most recent version available, and any reclassifications are then used for the entirety of the time series until the next year.

This means that sector level time series represent the current employers classified in each sector and are less likely to be distorted by employers being reclassified at the enterprise level because of small changes at the lower unit level. However, it also means that these time series may be revised between publications and, in the historical sections of the time series, employers are classified in sectors in which they were not classified at that point in time. However, this method should minimise discrepancies in the data caused by reclassifications and should more easily allow the tracking of job movements between sectors.

Imputation and revisions

RTI data used in this release are extracted in the weeks following the end of the latest reference month. For some individuals this means payments relating to work done in recent reference months are yet to be received. Rather than wait until all payment returns have been received, we produce timelier measures by imputing the values for missing returns.

For the latest reference month around 15% of the data are imputed. We refer to this as the “flash” or “early” estimate in the bulletin, as this figure is the most subject to revision as payment returns are received and the imputed payments replaced with actual data.

From our July 2022 publication, two changes were made to the imputation model. A seasonal factor was incorporated into the imputation model. The model was also made more responsive to recent changes to the labour market that would affect the likelihood of a payment existing. The latter change in particular should reduce the scale of revisions seen to the “flash” estimate but cannot eliminate revisions completely.

Earlier months also contain some imputed data. Some payment frequencies mean that we have not received the relevant payment data more than a month after the reference period. Also, in some circumstances, returns might be submitted late. Therefore, earlier months are also subject to revision, but these revisions are likely to be much smaller because the level of imputation is smaller. The proportion of imputed data for a reference month two months before data extraction is around 1% to 2% of the data.

For the majority of months, post-flash revisions will occur in small amounts gradually each month as more submissions are received. However, all RTI submissions must be received before the end of the tax year. Therefore, for months close to the end of the tax year these submissions and associated minor revisions that would have accumulated through the year instead need to be received all at once in the final submissions of the tax year. The months of January and February will be most affected by this and see sharper non-flash revisions at the end of the tax year if the imputed submissions are not received by that point. From July 2022, changes were incorporated into the imputation model to try to control for these seasonal differences, as well as other seasonal factors that might affect whether submissions are received through different points of the year.

Further information on the impact of the changes to the imputation model can be found in our methods article, Impact of imputation changes in employment statistics from Pay As You Earn Real Time Information methodology.

The seasonal adjustment model will also update each month as the model is refined on the latest data available. These adjustments will appear as revisions in the seasonally adjusted data, and in the supporting seasonally adjusted revisions triangle.

Starting with the December 2020 publication, we introduced a new revisions policy. For each publication, we incorporate new input data only for the current tax year and the previous tax year. Revisions to estimates can potentially be made for up to the last two years as data can continue to be received, though updates to data outside of the most recent tax year are minimal.

Changes to the seasonally adjusted data also occur earlier than this limit, as the seasonal adjustment model is refined. The benefit of introducing this revisions policy is that we can use the processing time saved to produce and publish more detailed breakdowns. We capture any new input data referencing earlier years by incorporating data for the whole time series once a year.

Seasonal adjustment

The seasonal adjustment applied in this bulletin follows established best practice. This approach assumes that any seasonal patterns remain broadly consistent over time. If the seasonal pattern changes in strength, this will be represented as greater volatility in the seasonally adjusted figures. Both the seasonal and non-seasonally adjusted datasets are released alongside this bulletin.

The model for seasonal adjustment is reviewed annually, with new models being applied where possible. After a delay in updating the model last year because of coding issues, we aim to update seasonal adjustment parameters in September’s publication.

Differences compared with the Labour Force Survey and Average Weekly Earnings statistics

Further information about the methodology used, and comparisons with our Labour Force Survey (LFS) and Average Weekly Earnings can be found in our New methods for monthly earnings and employment estimates from Pay As You Earn Real Time Information (PAYE RTI) data: December 2019.

The strengths and weaknesses of these sources and other labour market data sources are shown in our Comparison of labour market data sources methodology, including the advantages of new administrative data sources and limitations of some of our published figures.