Average Salaries in the UK and London....

I thought this was interesting.

According to an article in today's issue of the Evening Standard:

- the average salary in the UK is £28,941

- the average salary in London is £41,759

- the average salary in the City of London is £73,587

source: Office of National Statistics

This comes less than a week after another article was published regarding London's new status as the most expensive city in the world to live in.

If only I could work in London and live in Toronto.

Wowza. I'm being underpaid!

Looks like I was too! For basic admin, my boyfriend and I were both being paid in the region of 15,500 in Manchester.

Where did they get those numbers, and is it an average of all the lawyers, MPs, footballers and the rest of the average folk? If so, it's not a very helpful statistic. My guess is the average salary in London is higher partly (and only partly) because when people get higher up the ladder, they often move to the centre of things, i.e. London. The CEO of a multinational isn't necessarily going to continue working out of Leamington Spa.

I really hate topics like this.those statistics are incredibly misleading. sure. swarms of bankers in london make £60+, many £100+. But there is also a huge class of people who are unemployed and living in poverty too (of course they're not included in those statistics).

the evening standard does not often yield much useful information.

wow. i didn't mean to provoke emotions of hate.

just to be clear, the numbers are produced by the government, not the evening standard. it is also assumed that unemployed individuals are not included because they obviously don't earn salaries.

personally, i find the information useful because i live and work in london, and i'm interested in knowing where i stand financially, relative to the average salary earner. I thought others would be interested too.

i think information like this is helpful when deciding whether or not to search for a better job, negotiate a better salary, or pay employees more.

maybe they should have published salary medians, rather than salary averages. The numbers would have been much more crowd pleasing.

wanderlust, i'm sorry if my post upset you.

It is useful info to know about but I think I can count the amount of English friends I have on one hand that have salaries over £25k/per year. Also, the salaries are higher in London because the cost of living is higher. try and find a 2 bedroom flat to rent for under £400 that isn't a dive or in a rough area or see if £20 will be enough for a night out on the town!

Of course, if you have all kinds of degrees and dimplomas you have a step up on your starting salaries for your profession but in general, most of the positions I've seen up here (North West England) are between £12k (cashier or checkout clerk type jobs) to £14k (starting salary for admin/receptionist type jobs).

Employers can be very cheeky (as I found out with my first job when I moved here) and try to take advantage of Canadian's trusting nature, so best advice. get EVERYTHING in writing that you are being promised and don't sign anything your not 100% in agreement with. no matter what your employer tells you, you are NOT legally obliged to sign anything you don't agree with in order to retain employement and they can not dismiss you for refusing to sign something (including a contract).

Another thing to note. your employee rights in the UK only truely kick in after you have worked at the same company full time for over a year, full protection after 3 years employment. The grey period in the first year they can basically fire you, lay you off, reduce your hours etc etc as you are assumed by employment laws to be on "probation period" during your first year of employment even if its not indicated in your employment contract, so be cautious and be picky and look out for your own interests first (but be polite about it) or employers may very well try to take advantage of you like happened in my case. Luckily everything turned out & I matched my boss at his own game, but had I not done hours of research and consulted the CAB (Citizens Advice Bureau) I could have been left with no job, no notice of termination, no letter of reference and no leaving pay package/no money because I dared to stand up for myself and my rights.

Its best to research salaries within your given field of work in the uk or London or wherever you plan to find employment.

a 20 year old coming over to work in a pub or as an au pare should not expect to earn 40k for instance.

Statistics need to be analysed in its proper context or else they can be hugely disceiving.

I mentioned the unemployment to balance the perspective on people living in London.

No Canadian at all (French) but thought I'll post and try to answer the question.

Average earnings in the UK (mean to be precise) are in the region of 24.500 for males and 19.500 for females. The top 10% are earning some 44.000 while the bottom 10% average 12.000 according to the Office of National Statistics.

In London the figures are slightly higher and are thought to be 29.000 for a full time worker.

Note that statistics are only a guide. They cannot fully be trusted and often hide the true picture. These figures for instance only relate to people in full time employment. Many aren't so lucky as to have such a status and do not appear in the stats.

In the UK non-compliance with the law and non-enforcement by the authorities mean that many are being paid below the minimum wage (in the name of economic growth and "fat catery").

Also many are in government welfare-to-work programms and many more are temporary workers. While they may earn the average for a week, they do not always have work for the full year.

Other factors to takes into account include people whose employers are providing free accomodation (and therefore are exempt from the min wage as their rate of pay in adjusted), people aged 16-18, the self-employed, black market workers, seasonal workers etc.

If you take all that into account (which is hard) the figures should give you an idea.

BlunderCity