Official ONS earnings figures · ASHE 2025 provisional
Free UK salary checker: see where your pay sits
Enter the job title from your contract or offer letter. See how your pay compares with official ONS earnings figures for similar UK roles.
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UK-wide figures for full-time employees. A benchmark for the market, not a valuation of your own offer and not a legal minimum.
Use the title from your contract or offer letter.
How to read the figures
A useful benchmark, with a few limits
ONS figures show what full-time employees earn across the UK. They do not account for location, experience, company size or the details of your offer.
Annual pay
Gross annual earnings for full-time employees who have been in the same job for at least 12 months.
Hourly pay
Gross hourly earnings including overtime. ONS advises against comparing the annual and hourly figures directly.
Broader groups
Where ONS does not publish reliable figures for a specific occupation, we use the broader occupational group and label it.
Commonly checked roles
UK pay percentiles for 35 common roles
Gross annual pay for full-time employees, from ASHE 2025 provisional. Search above for any of the 407 occupations ONS publishes.
| Occupation | 25th percentile | Median | 75th percentile |
|---|---|---|---|
| Specialist medical practitioners | £67,335 | £92,847 | £136,100 |
| Financial managers and directors | £50,000 | £76,447 | £120,417 |
| Head teachers and principals | £59,307 | £72,192 | £83,623 |
| IT project managers | £41,423 | £58,373 | £74,823 |
| Human resource managers and directors | £43,676 | £57,529 | £78,677 |
| Solicitors and lawyers | £42,015 | £56,977 | £77,509 |
| Programmers and software development professionals | £42,289 | £56,914 | £75,794 |
| Generalist medical practitioners | £43,727 | £55,494 | £68,946 |
| Paramedics | £45,499 | £53,818 | £60,860 |
| Pharmacists | £44,891 | £53,772 | £62,344 |
| Civil engineers | £39,802 | £51,366 | £65,000 |
| Mechanical engineers | £39,125 | £51,110 | £62,237 |
| Chartered and certified accountants | £38,696 | £50,062 | £68,056 |
| Secondary education teaching professionals | £39,059 | £47,632 | £54,047 |
| Architects | £37,342 | £47,143 | £55,262 |
| Midwifery nurses | £42,084 | £46,990 | £53,564 |
| Primary education teaching professionals | £37,847 | £45,939 | £51,676 |
| Specialist nurses | £39,340 | £45,140 | £52,644 |
| Social workers | £39,517 | £44,550 | £49,959 |
| Mental health nurses | £37,229 | £42,692 | £48,074 |
| Large goods vehicle drivers | £33,749 | £39,905 | £46,679 |
| Electricians and electrical fitters | £32,287 | £39,647 | £49,138 |
| Data analysts | £30,835 | £38,572 | £47,045 |
| Plumbers & heating and ventilating installers and repairers | £31,656 | £37,881 | £45,451 |
| Vehicle technicians, mechanics and electricians | £30,000 | £37,458 | £44,594 |
| Bus and coach drivers | £30,889 | £36,340 | £43,855 |
| Carpenters and joiners | £28,900 | £34,014 | £40,477 |
| Security guards and related occupations | £27,982 | £33,832 | £39,194 |
| Chefs | £25,894 | £30,010 | £36,126 |
| Nursing auxiliaries and assistants | £25,189 | £29,084 | £33,294 |
| Warehouse operatives | £24,447 | £27,832 | £33,151 |
| Care workers and home carers | £22,798 | £27,468 | £32,493 |
| Sales and retail assistants | £21,970 | £25,056 | £29,846 |
| Receptionists | £22,124 | £24,678 | £28,730 |
| Teaching assistants | £18,789 | £21,239 | £24,152 |
These are gross figures before tax, for full-time employees only. If you are on a zero hours contract the comparison is indicative at best. ONS annual pay includes any overtime actually worked, so a figure here can sit above the basic salary a contract guarantees.
Checking an offer rather than a current job? Read what to strip out before pasting an offer letter into ChatGPT, and what your payment terms clause has to say about when the money actually arrives.
Minimum wage
National Minimum Wage 2026: different from market pay
The figures above show what employees are paid. The legal minimum depends on your age and whether you’re an apprentice. The current rates, in force since April 2026, are:
- 21 and over (National Living Wage)
- £12.71
- 18 to 20
- £10.85
- Under 18
- £8.00
- Apprentice
- £8.00
Pay below the 25th percentile can still be lawful. Pay below the minimum wage for your category is not. Check the current rates on GOV.UK.
Frequently asked questions
Salary checker questions
Where does this salary data come from?+
Pay figures come from the ONS Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE 2025 provisional). Job-title matching uses the ONS SOC 2020 coding index. Minimum-wage rates come from GOV.UK. All three sources are published under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
What exactly is being compared?+
The annual figures cover gross pay for full-time employees who have been in the same job for at least 12 months. They are UK-wide, not adjusted for London or other regions, and do not cover freelance day rates or part-time salaries. Hourly figures include overtime and should not be compared directly with the annual figures.
Is being paid below the 25th percentile legal?+
Usually, yes. The percentiles describe the market; they are not legal minimums. Your pay must still meet the minimum wage for your age and apprenticeship status.
Why does my job title match several occupations?+
The same title can describe very different work. Choose your employer’s sector and then the occupation closest to your duties.
Why is there no figure for my job?+
ONS suppresses figures where the sample is too small to publish reliably. We show no benchmark rather than guess.
Sources
- Earnings: ONS Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings, ASHE 2025 provisional — Open Government Licence v3.0.
- Job titles: ONS SOC 2020 coding index — Open Government Licence v3.0.
- Minimum wage: GOV.UK National Minimum Wage rates — Open Government Licence v3.0.
Figures cover the United Kingdom only. This page provides general information, not legal advice.
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