LONDON - Median annual pay settlements offered by major private sector employers in Britain remained unchanged at 3.5% for the January to March period, according to a survey published by Incomes Data Research (IDR). The findings were released shortly after the Bank of England left interest rates unchanged while it continues to evaluate inflationary pressures.
IDR noted that pay awards may have climbed in April when the National Living Wage rose by 4.1% to 12.71 pounds an hour ($17.32), a change that could have influenced higher-end settlements in the following month.
"Higher-end awards worth 4% or more are more common in April than at the start of the year due to the influence of the uplift in the National Living Wage," Zoe Woolacott, a senior researcher at IDR, said.
The IDR release also set out several specific movements observed in its sample:
- The share of firms granting pay increases of 4% or more rose to above 20%, up from 16% in February.
- Median wage settlements in private sector services increased to 3.5% in March from 3.3% in February.
- Pay awards in the manufacturing and production sectors remained unchanged from February at 3.5%.
The survey drew on 87 pay awards recorded between January 1 and March 31 and covered 630,455 employees. The IDR summary included an exchange-rate note of ($1 = 0.7338 pounds).
While IDR highlighted the potential for higher-value awards to have become more common in April because of the National Living Wage uplift, the published data for the January to March period show a steady median outcome across the private sector sample. The report’s figures differentiate movements within services and manufacturing/production but do not indicate broader economy-wide settlement trends beyond the sample period and size reported.
Readers should note the sample size and the specific date range when interpreting the results; the IDR data reflect those 87 awards and the 630,455 employees covered between the start and end of the first quarter.