UK Salaries: What Jobs Actually Pay

This is where we publish what UK employers actually pay. Some of it is our own analysis of advertised vacancies, updated every month. The rest is profession-by-profession guidance, sourced from published pay scales and named in each article.

One distinction runs through everything here, and it matters more than any single number. Advertised pay is not the same as actual pay. An advertised range is an opening position; what someone is paid after interview, after negotiation and after years in post is frequently different and is rarely published anywhere. Where we report advertised figures we say so, and where we report statutory scales we name the scale and the year it applies to.

Our own pay data

Each month we read every vacancy published through the Department for Education’s Teaching Vacancies service and record what it offered. The method is published with each report so the figures can be checked and compared.

Salary guides by profession

What a job pays at entry, with experience and at the top of its range, plus the qualifications and routes that move you up it.

NHS and public sector pay

Agenda for Change bands, how progression works in practice, and what the headline band figure leaves out.

Understanding what you are offered

Reading a job advert’s pay line, knowing what the statutory floors are, and what to expect from a pay review.

How we source pay figures

Statutory rates come from the relevant official source and carry the year they apply to. Pay scales come from the body that sets them. Advertised figures come from the adverts themselves, counted rather than estimated. Where a figure rests on too few adverts to be reliable, we say so instead of printing it. If you find something out of date, tell us and we will check it. Our full approach is set out in About and Editorial Standards.