What are the highest and lowest-paid jobs in the UK?
This article was first published in May 2021 and has been superseded by our March 2022 article.
Every year, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) undertakes an Annual Survey for Hours and Earnings (ASHE) and the data is published online. By downloading this data we can see that the highest paid job in the UK is as an aircraft pilot/flight engineer, with median earnings of just over £92,000 and the lowest-earning job is as a Playworker, with median earnings of just over £15,000. Read on to find the top 10 highest and lowest earning jobs and then search for any job title using the interactive chart. All the data in this article is from April 2020.
What are the top 10 highest-paid jobs in the UK?
Careers as managers, directors and senior officials are the highest-earning job categories in the UK, closely followed by professional occupations, associate professionals and technical jobs. Careers in administration, skilled trades, leisure, sales and machinery operation all have comparable earnings. In reality, regardless of the field you work in, the majority of full-time employees earn somewhere between £20k and £45k.
Aircraft pilots and flight engineers: £92,330
Chief executives and senior officials: £85,239
Marketing and sales directors: £80,759
Legal professionals (N.E.C): £77,212
IT & telecommunications directors: £69,814
Financial managers and directors: £67,114
Advertising and public relations directors: £63,362
Medical practitioners: £62,219
Functional managers and directors (N.E.C): £57,345
Senior police officers: £56,665
What are the top 10 lowest-paid jobs in the UK?
Careers in what are known as elementary occupations occupy the lower end of the pay scale in the UK. Interestingly, the data shows the average pay for a hairdresser or barber is just over £17k, whereas the owners and managers of the business only earned a small amount more between 2019/20 at just under £24k.
Playworkers: £15,394
Cooks: £16,964
Launderers, dry cleaners and pressers: £17,145
Educational support assistants: £17,212
Hairdressers and barbers: £17,223
Pharmacy and other dispensing assistants: £17,388
Kitchen and catering assistants: £17,437
Shelf fillers: £17,538
Elementary sales occupations: £17,629
Waiters and waitresses: £17,633
Interactive jobs and earnings chart.
The interactive chart below allows you to compare earnings across occupations, in terms of annual pay. You can see what the median annual earnings are for any occupation by searching for an occupation from the drop-down list or hovering over one of the dots.
How were these figures calculated?
The figures quoted in this article are provided by a sample of 1% of employees in the UK and relate to the 12-months to 22 April 2020. It’s worth mentioning that at the point of the survey, approximately 8.8 million employees were furloughed under Rishi Sunak’s Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS). For those that aren’t aware, employees that were furloughed under the CJRS received 80% of their normal pay from the scheme, up to a maximum of £2,500 a month. Employers were also able to voluntarily top up their employees' pay if they were able to. The ONS estimates that about 50% of employees had their pay topped up by their employer.
What does ‘median earnings’ mean?
The median is the middle of a set of numbers or data. For example, if the ONS surveyed 5 pilots and their earnings were £57k, £68K, £92k, £101k and £170k, the median pay of pilots would be the one in the middle, which is £92k. This methodology helps to discount the effect of the outliers (higher or lower), which would otherwise skew the average. The average that most of us are more familiar with is the mean, which in this case would be the sum of all the salaries, divided by the number of those surveyed. Using our example, the total of all the salaries is £488k which when divided by the 5 pilots gives a mean average of just shy of £98k. In this case, the pilot earning £170k has moved the average up by £6k when compared to the median of £92k, which may not accurately reflect the true level of earnings in the industry.
What’s next?
If you enjoyed this article, you may wish to find out how much need in your pension pot to retire. Alternatively, if you are looking to increase your income, our article on how a side-hustle could change your life may be of interest.
Are there any careers that pay higher or lower than you imagined? Please let us know in the comments below.
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