UK Average Salary 2024: What the ONS Data Shows
The ONS ASHE 2024 release shows median full-time pay reached £37,430. We break down who earns what, which sectors lead, and how pay has changed since 2020.
The Office for National Statistics published its Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) in October 2024, covering pay data from April 2024. Here is what the numbers show.
Headline Figures
- Median full-time annual pay: £37,430 (+4.0% vs April 2023)
- Median part-time annual pay: £15,020
- Mean full-time annual pay: £44,700 (skewed upward by high earners)
The 4.0% year-on-year increase in median pay outpaced CPI inflation of 2.3% in April 2024, meaning real wages rose for the first time since 2021.
Sector Breakdown
The highest-paying broad sectors in 2024, by median full-time gross pay:
| Sector | Median annual pay |
|---|---|
| Finance and insurance | £52,400 |
| Information and communication | £51,800 |
| Professional, scientific and technical | £47,200 |
| Public administration and defence | £40,100 |
| Health and social work | £37,600 |
| Education | £36,900 |
| Retail and wholesale | £27,300 |
| Accommodation and food service | £22,600 |
Finance and technology dominate the upper end, while hospitality and retail remain at the lower end despite significant wage growth in recent years driven by National Living Wage increases. For role-specific breakdowns in the top-paying sectors, see the software engineer salary guide and the data scientist salary guide.
Gender Pay Gap
The ONS measures the gender pay gap as the difference between men's and women's median hourly pay as a percentage of men's median hourly pay.
In April 2024, the full-time gender pay gap was 7.0%, down from 7.7% in 2023 and a peak of around 17% in the mid-2000s. Including part-time workers, the overall gap was 13.0% — the part-time figure is higher because women are more likely to work part-time.
Public vs Private Sector
Public sector workers had a median annual pay of £35,700 in April 2024, compared to £37,900 in the private sector. However, this headline comparison omits pension value — public sector defined-benefit pensions are considerably more valuable than typical private sector provision. Our nurse salary guide and teacher salary guide walk through how Agenda for Change and STRB pay scales sit against the all-occupations median.
How Real Wages Have Changed Since 2020
| Year | Median full-time pay | CPI inflation (April) | Real change |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | £31,461 | 0.8% | — |
| 2021 | £31,285 | 1.5% | −0.6% |
| 2022 | £33,000 | 9.0% | +5.2% nominal / −3.8% real |
| 2023 | £35,990 | 8.7% | +9.1% nominal / +0.4% real |
| 2024 | £37,430 | 2.3% | +4.0% nominal / +1.7% real |
The recovery in real wages accelerated in 2024 as inflation fell back toward target. Workers who held their nominal pay flat from 2021 to 2023 lost meaningful purchasing power; those who secured increases at or above 9% in 2022 and 2023 roughly maintained their real position.
What This Means for Your Pay
These figures are economy-wide averages. Whether your salary is competitive depends on your specific occupation and location. A £37,430 salary looks different for a software developer (well below market rate) versus a care worker (significantly above the sector norm), and London earners typically need an extra £8,000–£10,000 to match the national real-terms position — covered in our London salary guide.
If you are weighing how AI exposure could affect your role over the next five years, our will my job be replaced by AI? 2026 outlook pairs the same ONS pay data with named UK exposure studies.
Use the Salary Scout salary tool to look up ASHE 2024 median and percentile data for your specific occupation and region.
Source: ONS Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE), 2024 provisional results. Published under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
Topics: salary, uk, ons, ashe, 2024, average