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.

As this topic pops up with tedious regularity on mumsnet, perhaps there should be a pinned post with a glossary of averages 😅

You're confusing median and mean. A few hundred footballers (or bankers or pop stars) have virtually no effect on the median.

Anyway it’s beside the point. OP thinks she should earn way more than the peasants because she’s on a special grad scheme.

Why ? It's taught at school.

Also we don't really want a society that is too comfortable with numbers and mathematics. They might start asking awkward questions.

Arithmetic Mean, Geometric Mean, Median and Mode are all types of average.
The common term for mean is average but that does not mean the others are not also averages.

Statisticans use the average that gives the message they want to give.

Do you have a reliable source for median not being an average?

I would never in a million years describe £37k for a median f/t wage in a developed Western economy as 'high'. It's shit - especially after taxes and adjusted for purchasing power parity.

Manual labour doesn’t mean NMW. My DP drives a HGV and earns over £50k, DS 19 is now a qualified service tech in a dealership garage earning £32k. Me? I’m an award winning content writer for a creative agency and earn less than £30k!

A lot of people seem to think that 'average' is a synonym for 'arithmetic mean' and that the other measures of central tendency are not really averages.

Correction: by 'people', I mean adults. Every Y8 child knows this.

The very definition of median is midpoint, which clearly is not necessarily the same as average (or mean). It’s basic mathematics but people use the terms interchangeably. . The median of 3 data points, £35,000, £40,000 and £120,000 is £40,000. The mean is £65,000.

I am surprised that OP thinks £37,400 (or £47,500) is high as a median salary, despite the fact they are in a fairly low paid graduate job in an organisation in which almost every single other employee earns more, in most cases much more, than they do. I am disappointed the median salary is so low.

Yes I know that.

That is why I asked for a reliable source for the “fact”

'I thought most people were in low paid service jobs'.

I don't get this at all - what about Dr's, dentists, teachers, accountants, train drivers, the many many white collar jobs, management roles, law, finance, tech, tradespeople....the list of jobs in the country is endless!!

No it’s really not.
Only mean is the same as average.

No, only median is average.

I was a management consultant for years and now am in industry so a client.

As a graduate, honestly unless you’re exceptional (I probably came across 3-4 genuinely exceptional, as opposed to just very bright, grads in my 10 years in the big four), you’re not that much use at the start. It’s a training programme. £37k for a training programme where you are learning far more from the employer and client than they are getting from you is a good deal.

Work hard, absorb everything like a sponge, realise you’re there to learn and you’ll progress quickly. It’s a fun career with a steep learning curve and high salaries in the future. But grad salaries shouldn’t be stupidly high.

Just look at any dictionary of maths term
Median is the middle number in a distribution.
Average is the sum of observations divided by the number of observations.

Average is the mean.
The other measures are not the average.
If your understanding is that of a Yr8 child that median and mode are also “averages”, that’s not something to crow about,

Sorry autocorrect, mean = average.

I think you're under-estimating what "low-paid" service type jobs actually pay. Our local bus company (outside London) is advertising for new drivers up to £36,500 plus overtime.

I was about to make the same point - there are different ways of calculating the average and they each have their advantages and disadvantages depending on the context. Mode, Mean, and median are all ways of calculating an average. I'm a little bit surprised that so many people get so muddled up about a concept that we should all be familiar with both in terms of the calculation and what it means.

Some of the claims people are making defy the concept of average. Some imply that most people earn more than the average (regardless of how it is calculated). How on earth can that be possible?

Please @SpiritAdder stop embarrassing yourself. Furthermore, if you think about it conceptually, you'll understand why you are just plain wrong in your understanding. They are all different ways of calculating the average. Take a moment and think about it. Think about what each measure is doing and you will see why they are all calculating an average (that is when you also consider what average means).

OP, The last two graduates I have recruited started on £30k and £35k. Someone with a Masters in Applied Maths from Cambridge, recently started on £90k.

You are also ignoring the impact of years experience. Experienced Nurses and teachers can earn £50k. The slater who reroofed our house told my ds a skilled slater would be on about £90k a year . My sister, with no degree but 30 years experience, earns £85k as an HR manager.

Why did you think most people earn minimum wage?

As a graduate, now you need to add 10 years experience, get some good projects under your belt, and move job a few times to improve your income.

No wonder Sunak wanted Brits to all have to take Maths until age 18 when people seriously think that mode, median and mean are just different ways to calculate an average. NO! There is only one way to calculate the average (x̄)

I can understand confusing median with average, but mode? The observation that is the most frequent in the data set?! How!

take this data set

2,2,20,25,200,2000,2500

The mode = 2

thats nowhere near the average/mean

the median = 25

that’s also nowhere near the average/mean

the average/mean=678.43

They are not all “different types of averages”

https://www.calculatorsoup.com/calculators/statistics/mean-median-mode.php

There is only one calculation for average ( x̄ )

THIS is exactly what we need to be telling our children when they're thinking about University. A lot of "manual" work pays far better than comfy desk jobs. We need to change the mindset that manual work is all dirty and for the thicko's. It really isn't. There are railway line engineers working anti social hours earning over £100k doing pretty basic "grunt" work, whilst their supervisors/engineers are earning even more.