Annual survey of hours and earnings: 2024

Glossary

Real earnings

Earnings adjusted for inflation are calculated by adjusting nominal earnings from ASHE to the Consumer Prices Index including owner occupiers’ housing costs (CPIH). CPIH is the most comprehensive measure of inflation.  The ONS Consumer price inflation, UK publication provides further details on CPIH.

Work Patterns (full-time and part-time)

Full-time is defined as employees working more than 30 paid hours per week (or 25 or more hours for teaching professions). Part-time is defined as employees working less than or equal to 30 paid hours per week (or less than 25 hours for the teaching professions).

Median

A measure of the average. The median is calculated by identifying the exact middle point in a set of observations. When the observations are ranked from lowest to highest, the median is the value in the exact middle of the observed values. This is the preferred measure of average earnings as it is less affected by a relatively small number of very high earners than the mean is.

Gender Pay Gap

Gender Pay Gap is calculated as the difference between the average hourly earnings (excluding overtime) for men and women as a proportion of the average hourly earnings (excluding overtime) for men.

The gender pay gap can be calculated based on the median or mean and for full-time, part-time or all employees.

Standard Occupational Classification (SOC)

The Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) is a common classification of occupational information for the UK.

From 2021, ONS have moved from Standard Occupation Classifications (SOC) 2010 to SOC 2020 for their occupation coding. This means earnings estimates for April 2021 based on SOC 2020 represent a break in the ASHE time series. More information on the impact of the change from SOC 2010 to SOC 2020 can be found in the Measures of employee earnings based on SOC 2020, UK: 2021 bulletin.