An Interesting Fact

[kwatt]

I meant to do this a while ago, but the recent threads on contracts got me to thinking on it again and I gleaned the following from the Office For National Statistics, so this is pukka, hard factual stuff…

Earnings
Pay in all regions tops £400 per week

Across all regions average weekly pay went above £400 for the first time. The largest overall increases were in the South West and the East (4.2 per cent). The lowest increases were in the South East (1.4 per cent). Weekly earnings averaged £637 in London, significantly higher than in other regions, which ranged from £402 in the North East to £506 in the South East.

Average earnings of full-time male employees were £525 per week in April 2003, for women the average was £396 while the figure for all adults was £476.

The average annual pay for women increased by 3.5 per cent in 2003 to £20,314, going above the £20,000 mark for the first time. Average annual earnings for full-time employees for the 2002-2003 tax year stood at £25,170 up 3.1 per cent on the previous year. Males earned on average £28,065, up 3.0 per cent.

Top of the earnings league in 2003 were ‘Directors and chief executives of major organisations’, (£2,301 a week), followed by ‘Medical practitioners’ (£1,186) and ‘Financial managers and chartered secretaries’ (£1,124).

The lowest paid of all full-time employees were ‘Retail cashiers and check-out operators’ with £208 a week. This was 9 per cent of the earnings of the highest paid group.

The difference between full-time earnings in the public sector and the private sector narrowed over the year to April 2003. Weekly pay in the private sector grew by 1.9 per cent to £480. Public sector pay averaged £465, an increase of 3.7 per cent. This compares with an overall increase of 2.8 per cent.

Average earnings are calculated by dividing the total earnings of a group of employees by the number of people in the group. This average (‘mean’) value is boosted by a relatively small number of employees with extremely high earnings. Although average earnings in April 2003 were £476 per week, half of all full-time employees earned less than £394. The top 10 per cent of the earnings distribution earned more than £770 per week, while the bottom tenth earned less than £223.

The laugh is, that’s from 2003 tax year’s information, we’ve yet to see a further increase!

So, I have to wonder, how many of us actually earn that or more in a year in this business, I suspect not too many of us and hardly any of our engineers will even come close either I expect.

Just food for thought.

K.

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