"Average wage £29,000"

[liketochange]

I've had an ad on my Facebook for one of those "your baby born on this day" type posters with today's stats, which includes the average wage of £29,000. I'm aware this is the average wage according to stats, but there were loads of comments saying that was wrong, "that's more like household" etc. AIBU to ask does £29k seems that unlikely to be average in your opinion? Do bigger salaries drag it up making it look unrealistic to most?

*statistics

mind nope, not saying that at all. Just making the point that personal opinions are useless when trying to determine whether stats based on large populations of data is useless. That's why science can't be based on gut feel: it's very unreliable. For example, we're both graduates with similar geographic backgrounds. You think the number sounds too high, I don't.

Given that the source of the stat has been given by a pp, if you (as in general you not specifically mind) want to challenge it's validity, you should be looking at the assumptions made in getting to the number and seeing whether they stand up. In fact, surely this is something More or Less has covered at some point?

But which is more likely:
-the ONS has persistently miscalculated the average salaries using a sample size in excess of 300,000
or
-your circle of friends is not representative of the UK average

It is based on people who pay PAYE though, so no self employed

@CuriousaboutSamphire they bother because even a tiny income from self-employment allows them to pay class 2 national insurance which will build their entitlement to the state pension.

I earn pennies nowadays but am still registered as self employed and have just one more year of contributions to reach the full state pension. That will be my sole income in retirement.

Fascinating to learn the difference between the median, mean and average etc. Thank you to those who have explained it clearly.

watching with interest

It is based on people who pay PAYE though, so no self employed

Like PAYE, the income of the self employed will vary hugely as it will include the people earning a pittance while being exploited by Uber, Deliveroo, and the parcel delivery companies, those starting out and just building up their trade, up to successful skilled tradespeople then business people, lawyers, doctors and dentists and celebrities etc.

Yes if you include the self employed it might be higher including sole trader barrister, solicitors, doctors in the private sector and many others on high pay.

Self employed will vary hugely and I wasn't drawing any conclusions from its absence - I just mentioned it as pp were discussing self employment

they bother because even a tiny income from self-employment allows them to pay class 2 national insurance which will build their entitlement to the state pension That hadn't crossed my mind. Not saying the people I am thinking of are that smart, they are the "Knitting Yoghurt" types and MLM dupes.

But that does explain why some people do. Thank you humblebumblebees ANother learning day

I wish i knew hpw to transfer into one of these v well paid part time jobs that seem yo abund on mn!

Graduate but most jobs around here that I see advertised are 18-22 pro rata and still want experience....

You could move to an area where such jobs are located. They aren't evenly distributed around the country. Locally, the SW, you'd find everything was MW hospitality work, but DS's company ( a small 5-star hotel) are screaming for housekeepers.

Kneel, that's what they pay for entry jobs in Lidl over here (outer London).

Outer london is rather an expensive place to live!

Assistant social workers/parent support workers/other local govt roles. Many the type to go to grads with experience are around the 22 mark.
Basic admin £8-£10 an hour....

Its a bit soul destroying. It's not like there's a ton of well paid part time work to leap back into! I do wish I'd retrained pre kids.

Not all graduate jobs pay over £30k. Some will, yes, but take journalism as an example - a degree and very probably a masters is necessary to be a journalist now and you’ll likely start on £16k in a regional paper or £18-22k in London. Wages in journalism have actually dropped in like-for-like terms in the last couple of decades! Similarly I’ve seen graduate marketing roles advertised for between £20-25k, so basically don’t do anything remotely creative if you want to earn the big bucks

29K seems incredibly low to me - that wouldn’t anywhere near cover rent for a basic 2 bed here plus childcare for 1 child (c. 4K a month) here! So it’s probably outliers like our area shifting it up if you consider that to be low.

£29k would get a lot further in the NE than the SE so it's probably about right.

Average here is like 19k

£29,000 certainly wouldn't be sufficient to live in London in your own property.

NQT in Scotland will now earn almost 27K rising to just over 40K in 6 years when at the top of the pay scale, for Scotland a good salary but not for example in the SE

Take one small village. What is the average salary of the working residents? All it takes is for one person in that village to be on a multi-million salary and it totally skews the average.

Statistics like this are meaningless really.

It’s all relative. It’s probably accurate for an unskilled job.

My son (21) is about to graduate and his new job has a starting salary of 27k. Here in the SE, 29k is far from average, I’d say.

29K is certainly not average in Kent where I live (near the coast Kent not Bromley Kent for instance).
It’s more like 20K.
But for some on MN they’d consider that a part time wage with their mahoosive salaries).

Seems about right to me. I live in a London borough, 30 mins train direct to London so most work in the city

The median annual income in the UK, according to the most recent Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings, is £28,677 for full-time employees.

Inner London, on 26k and no room for increase as I am the top of my pay scale.