Earnings and employment from Pay As You Earn Real Time Information, UK: March 2025

23rd March 2025

Early estimates for February 2025 indicate that the number of payrolled employees broadly stayed the same compared with February 2024, at 30.4 million; a small rise of 0.2% or 67,000 employees.

This change was highest in the health and social work sector, a rise of 92,000 employees, and lowest in the accommodation and food service activities sector, a fall of 64,000 employees.

Payrolled employment increased by 21,000 employees (0.1%) in February 2025 when compared with January 2025; figures for February should be treated as provisional estimates and are likely to be revised when more data are received next month.

UK payrolled employee growth for January 2025 compared with December 2024 has been revised from an increase of 21,000 reported in the last bulletin to an increase of 9,000; this is because of the incorporation of additional real time information (RTI) submissions into the statistics, which takes place every publication and reduces the need for imputation.

Early estimates for February 2025 indicate that median monthly pay increased by 5.0% compared with February 2024.

Annual growth in median pay in February 2025 was highest in the accommodation and food service activities sector, with an increase of 9.3%, and lowest in the finance and insurance sector, with a decrease of 2.1%.

Read the full ONS report HERE