UK median monthly pay hits £2,632: HMRC July 2026 payroll data explained

August 2026 update — The joint ONS/HMRC Pay As You Earn Real Time Information release for July 2026 landed on 21 July, and it gives the freshest read yet on where UK pay actually sits going into the autumn.

The headline: median monthly pay for UK payrolled employees stood at £2,632 in June 2026, up +4.3% year-on-year on June 2025. That takes annualised gross pay for the median worker to just over £31,500 — before overtime, bonuses and the effect of the higher-band adjustments already announced for teaching, NHS and police staff.

What the July 2026 numbers actually show

Unlike the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings, RTI captures PAYE payroll data every month, so it is the fastest official signal of where earnings are heading. Three things stand out from the July release:

1. Median monthly pay: £2,632 — a fifth consecutive month of year-on-year growth above 4%.
2. Payrolled employees: 30.3 million — down 71,000 (–0.2%) from June 2025 to June 2026. Employee numbers are drifting lower, but the drop is concentrated in retail and hospitality rather than professional services.
3. Fastest sector by pay: health and social work at +6.2% year-on-year. The slowest: education at +3.5% — below the national headline and behind CPIH inflation.

Sector divergence: who is catching up and who is falling behind

The +6.2% growth in health and social work is being driven by NHS Agenda for Change uplifts, backdated bank shift premiums, and continued private-sector care recruitment pressure.

By contrast, education at +3.5% is running below the RTI national median. The 2025-26 teacher award of 4% is being absorbed into cohort-averaged data that also includes non-teaching staff on lower settlements. The multi-year deal announced in July 2026 (3.5% for 2026-27, 3.0% for 2027-28) will start to show up in RTI figures from September 2026 onwards.

For professional services — the world of accountants, marketing managers and technology staff — sector growth is landing close to the headline national number.

What accountants should read into this

Accountancy sits inside professional, scientific and technical activities. That sector's RTI pay growth has been running slightly above the national median for the past year, reflecting continued audit-firm competition and demand for qualified finance business partners. See our UK accountant salary guide by region for 2026 for the region-by-region base salary picture.

What marketing managers should read into this

Marketing and communications sit within the broader information and communication sector, which continues to grow slightly above the RTI headline. The UK marketing manager salary guide by region for 2026 shows how the London premium is holding but no longer widening — a shift from the sharper divergence seen in 2023.

What software engineers should read into this

Technology roles inside information and communication have followed the sector trend. The premium versus the national median is intact, but the year-on-year growth rate is now running in line with the headline. Our UK software engineer salary guide by region for 2026 has the current regional ranges.

What to watch next

The next RTI release lands 18 August 2026 — if you are reading this in late August or September, that update will supersede the figures here.

Methodology and source

Figures are drawn from the joint ONS/HMRC bulletin Earnings and employment from Pay As You Earn Real Time Information, UK: July 2026, published on 21 July 2026, using data covering the period to June 2026. RTI covers PAYE payroll payments and does not capture self-employed income. Data is used under the Open Government Licence v3.0.