Earnings and employment from Pay As You Earn Real Time Information UK January 2026

21st January 2026

Early estimates for December 2025 indicate that the number of payrolled employees was 30.2 million, which is a fall of 0.6% from December 2024; this is equivalent to 184,000 fewer employees.

The largest increase was in the health and social work sector, with a rise of 37,000 employees; the largest decrease was in the wholesale and retail sector, with a fall of 72,000 employees.

Payrolled employment decreased by 43,000 employees (0.1%) in December 2025, compared with November 2025; figures for December should be treated as provisional estimates and are likely to be revised when more data are received next month.

UK payrolled employee growth for November 2025 compared with October 2025 has been revised from a decrease of 38,000, reported in the last bulletin, to a decrease of 33,000; 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 December 2025 indicate that median monthly pay increased by 4.0%, compared with December 2024.

Annual growth in median pay in December 2025 was highest in the wholesale and retail sector, with an increase of 5.9%; it was lowest in the education sector, with an increase of 1.4%.

Payrolled employees
Early estimates for December 2025 indicate that there were 30.2 million payrolled employees (Figure 1), a fall of 0.6% compared with the same period of the previous year. This is a decline of 184,000 employees over the 12-month period. Compared with the previous month, the number of payrolled employees decreased by 0.1% in December 2025, a decrease of 43,000 people.

Read the full ONS report HERE