Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings

Latest results published 3rd November 2020

The key points from the Northern Ireland ASHE 2020 show that:

• Median gross weekly earnings for full-time employees in April 2020 decreased by 1% from £535 in 2019 to £529 in 2020; the first annual decrease in weekly earnings since 2014 and the largest decrease on record.
• UK weekly earnings increased by 0.1% to £586. NI has the second lowest earnings of the UK regions, with weekly earnings £57 below the UK average.
• Real weekly earnings in NI decreased by 2.0% returning real earnings close to 2010 levels while real UK weekly earnings increased by 0.9% over the year.
• Median annual earnings increased by 3.2% for all full-time employees in NI over the year to £28,000, but remained lower than the UK median of £31,000. The highest 10% of earners earned approximately £52,000 and above.

Publications 

• NI ASHE 2020
• Previous publications

Detailed Results

1. Headline statistics for Northern Ireland
2. Industry, occupation, age, public/private sector and skill level
3. NI geographies, by place of work and place of residence
4. Low pay analysis
5. All tables in Open Document Spreadsheet (ODS) format

HMRC PAYE RTI earnings

Experimental monthly earnings and employment from HMRC PAYE Real Time Information System. The key points were:

• The number of employees receiving pay through HMRC PAYE in NI in June 2021 was 757,200, an increase of 1.4% over the month and 2.6% over the year.  Employee numbers are now above the total recorded in March 2020.
• Earnings from the HMRC PAYE indicated that NI employees had a median monthly pay of £1,822 in June 2021, an increase of £8 (0.4%) over the month and an increase of £97 (5.6%) over the year.  The median monthly pay in June 2021 was 4.4% above the value in March 2020.
• Latest UK regional time series

Data Visualisation

1. Earnings distribution chart
2. Explanation of gender pay gap
3. Why we use the median in earnings statistics

Pension Results

The provisional results from the pensions element of the Northern Ireland ASHE 2020 were published on 10th May 2021.

• NI ASHE 2020 Pension Results

ASHE interactive maps

Click here for interactive earnings map

Geographically data refers to place of work.

• Gross weekly earnings
• Gross annual earnings
• Gross hourly earnings
• Total paid hours worked

NI ASHE Background Information

• Background to the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings
• Guidance for completing the ASHE 2021 survey
• ONS quality and methodology for ASHE

Mailing list

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