UK Salary by Industry: Median Pay by Sector 2026

The detail

ONS ASHE 2025 breaks median full-time pay down by industry section (the letter-coded SIC 2007 groups). The spread across sectors is even wider than the regional spread: from £58,488 in financial and insurance activities down to £28,687 in accommodation and food service - a ratio of more than 2 to 1.

The highest-paying industry sections are: financial and insurance activities (£58,488), electricity, gas and air conditioning supply (£55,469), information and communication (£52,264, the "tech" sector), mining and quarrying (£50,943) and professional, scientific and technical activities (£46,208). Finance also has the widest gap between median and mean - its mean full-time salary is £92,103, far above the £58,488 median, reflecting a long tail of very high earners in banking and asset management.

The lowest-paying sections are: accommodation and food service (£28,687), activities of households as employers (£31,400), agriculture, forestry and fishing (£32,784), arts, entertainment and recreation (£32,871) and wholesale and retail trade (£33,158). Hospitality and retail together employ several million people, which is why the UK median is dragged well below the finance and tech figures.

Mid-table sectors sit close to the UK median: manufacturing £38,956, education £39,999, public administration £40,879, transportation and storage £40,056, construction £43,100, and human health and social work £35,744. Choosing an industry has a larger effect on typical pay than choosing a region for most workers.

These are workplace-based medians for full-time employees and exclude bonuses paid to the self-employed, dividends and other non-employment income. Sector pay also interacts with region - finance and IT roles cluster in London and the South East, compounding the geographic premium shown in our salary-by-region data.