UK full-time pay rises 5.8% to £811.20 a week, ONS figures show

The 5.8 per cent nominal rise is the headline figure from the 2026 Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings, published on 22 October 2026. In real terms — after adjustment using CPIH — the gain was 2.7 per cent, meaning full-time workers did see their purchasing power improve, if more modestly than the headline number suggests.

Median hourly earnings excluding overtime for full-time employees rose by 5.7 per cent, from £19.68 to £20.81. Median gross annual earnings for full-time employees who had been in the same job for at least a year increased by 4.5 per cent, reaching £40,911 compared with £39,157 in April 2025.

Part-time workers tell a different story. Their median weekly earnings rose by 2.9 per cent in nominal terms but fell by 0.1 per cent in real terms — a small but meaningful distinction when household budgets are tight.

The figures show a clear gap between sectors. Public sector full-time median weekly earnings stood at £862.20, compared with £794.40 in the private sector — a difference of £67.80 per week. Median weekly earnings for all employees, full- and part-time combined, rose by 4.9 per cent over the year.

ONS also used the release to highlight improvements to how the survey is collected. The 2026 sample produced around 197,000 employee records, up from around 174,000 at the same stage in 2025. Response rates among micro-businesses — those with fewer than 10 employees — climbed from 36 per cent to 41 per cent, driven partly by digitised data collection. ONS said the expanded sample improves the quality and precision of level estimates, above all for smaller employers who have historically been harder to capture.

The results feed directly into policy decisions, including those around the National Minimum Wage and National Living Wage. But ONS is careful to distinguish ASHE from its Average Weekly Earnings measure, which it identifies as the more timely tool for monitoring short-term, economy-wide pay growth. ASHE’s strength is in the detail — earnings broken down by occupation, employee group and geographical area.

All 2026 figures are provisional. ONS plans to publish final data in October 2027 under its standard annual revision policy.