How is the median salary in the UK so high?

[MellowAquaBalonz]

The median gross annual salary for full-time employees in the UK in April 2024 was £37,430. This represents a 6.9% increase compared to £35,004 in April 2023. London's median salary is notably higher, at £47,500.

Those salaries are more often found in tech/banking/consulting etc. I am on a management consultancy grad scheme in London and it's only 40k off the bat, 50k once I am promoted in 2 years etc. And thousands applied for this.

I thought most people in the UK were in low-paid service jobs like hairdressing, shop assistants etc.

But your earnings will increase over time. Most of my friends who are management consultants are on far more than 50k! Hairdressers also can earn pretty well, they’re not usually on minimum wage 😏

Hairdressers can make a lot more than shop assistants, few are in anything like minimum wage.

Hairdresser | Explore Careers | National Careers Service

£19,000Starter
to
£30,000

according to the UK

19k isn’t even minimum wage, so I’m guessing it’s talking about an apprentice rate. It definitely goes to way over 30k, but probably hard to track as many of the higher earners are self employed.

I don’t really understand what you’re not understanding? I’d argue that 37k isn’t a great full time salary tbh, with the cost of living what it is, and especially if you’re trying to raise a family on it.

Is your issue that you feel that on a management consultancy grad scheme you should be vastly out-earning the average person?

Also lots of blue collar type jobs earn pretty decent money, especially experienced tradesmen.

Doesn’t take many footballer salaries to push up the median wage. I wonder what it would be if you took those out of the equation.

I think you’re saying that £37K feels high to be the average salary?

I agree with you that it seems high but I guess people earn more than you think, even hairdressers!

DH is on a smidge over minimum wage and is on about £25k. I do an average job for a local council and am on £35k. Most people earn minimum wage, but those few that earn mega wages skew the figures upwards.

30k was a decent wage in the early 2000s, in real terms it's now around what minimum wage would be back then (when you look at how basic you have to live on this now). In other words this is a low salary- it just takes time for people's perception to catch up as it used to be considered a benchmark of doing well. The UK is a low wage economy because we spend so much on social care and we absolutely adore hierarchy. Hard work gets you nowhere, unless you own your own business and have a bit of luck on your side. The only ones doing well now are born into wealth and own the assets. That's why we're not making any advances anymore and everything feels like its getting worse, because no one is being rewarded for hard work or innovation anymore, so there's no reason to do it.

I thought most people in the UK were in low-paid service jobs like hairdressing, shop assistants etc

Plenty of people do those jobs but many don't. The typical graduate entry level post will be at least £30k and will rise to at least the median within a few years, even lower paid graduates like nurses, teachers and police offciers. Many will earn a lot more than that, as illustrated by your own situation.

Even factory workers are often on more than NMW which is £25k for a 40 hour week and overtime or shift premiums will likely bring them close to the median.

Most skilled trades will earn above the median once qualified.

Hairdressers earn from £40k upwards. Lidl & Aldi are well above NMW.

You are looking in my area at about £26k an average salary.

I earn £37k. I wish it was enough to live on, forever robbing Peter to pay Paul

Median means half of people earn less than 37k. It’s only one form of average, it doesn’t mean the average person earns 37k. It could still be the case that 40% of people earn minimum wage, 40% of people earn 22-42k and then 20% of people earn 100k for example, it depends on the distribution of salaries

It’s not high. Do you really think you should be earning way above median because you’re on a grad scheme?

Median is just the mid point, not typical earnings. So 49.9 percent of people in UK earn less than that. And the majority who earn above that point might be only just above it. It doesn't reflect what most people earn. The only average that does is mode and it's rarely used when discussing income. I'd love to know what the mode earnings in UK are.

There are several ways to calculate the "average". Median is just one of them.

Generally the arithmetic mean is more useful, unless you want to disappear down the rabbit hole of standard deviation and qualitative.

The accepted practice in statistics, is you tell us what you want to prove, and we will provide the appropriate formula. Otherwise you might end up doing something stupid like reflect reality. And nobody wants that.

Well the mean is actually higher because there are a small number of people earning super high salaries and this pulls the average up. We don’t see this with median. If you want more detail you can easily google the distribution of salaries in the UK.

Train drivers, nurses, teachers, tradespersons, engineers, etc are all on that kind of money and more. There are also lots of people on a lot more, such as doctors, professionals, head teachers, etc. It's only really retail and hospitality and low level office work where minimum wage is the going rate. I also believe that the average wages figures are based on full time equivalence, so someone only working one day per week will have their wage multiplied by five for the national wage average calculations, which makes a big difference now that part time work is so popular.

I earn double that as a self employed hair dresser who specialises in extensions. Even the part time girls in my salon pull in around 30k.

I guess it’s hard to track as the majority of us are self employed.

Also DH earns around 55k and has no qualifications above GCSE. He did 50% of a two year btec and dropped out. He just climbed his way up in his company. There’s still plenty of room for him to get promoted as well. We are late 20’s.

Er, that’s not high for a median wage for all age groups.

I think you have confused median with average.

Median isn’t the same as average

That would be a very low / junior salary in tech/banking/consulting in London.

You are paid less because you are newly in the workplace. You aren't worth very much without experience.

Get the experience, perform highly and your salary will go up hugely.

No, median, mode and mean are all distinctly different calculations. Mean is another term for average.

Median is not a way to calculate the average.

Yes it is, why does MN struggle so much with averages!

There are many ways of calculating average,
Median
Mean
Mode
Range

Median, mode and mean are all "averages". Mathematically and linguistically.