Earnings of young people aged 25 to 29 years
Published:
12 September 2023
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Data on the average earnings of 25 to 29 year olds in the UK, by socio-economic background.
Summary main findings
In 2021, young people aged 25 to 29 earned on average £14.40 an hour.
Socio-economic background was strongly related to the level of young people’s earnings. Young people from lower working class backgrounds earned £12.40 an hour on average, compared with £16.70 for those from higher professional backgrounds.
Young men earned more than young women across all socio-economic backgrounds.
25 to 29 year olds from Chinese and Indian ethnic backgrounds earned significantly more than White British young people.
25 to 29 year olds with a disability earned significantly less than those without a disability.
By socio-economic background
Visualisation
Mean (average) hourly earnings of people aged 25 to 29 years, by socio-economic backgrounds (UK, 2021)
Data
| Socio-economic background | Mean hourly earnings (£) |
|---|---|
| Higher professional | 16.68 |
| Lower professional | 15.78 |
| Intermediate | 13.88 |
| Higher working | 12.77 |
| Lower working | 12.37 |
| Total | 14.43 |
Download
For the full download file, see Download the data.
By area
Visualisation
Difference in weekly earnings in pounds (£) of 25 to 29 year olds, compared to the national average (UK, 2014 to 2021 combined)
41 regions in the UK are ranked from the lowest to highest difference in earnings compared to the national average. They are then divided into 5 equally-sized groups (‘quintiles’), from 1 (lowest) to 5 (highest).
The regional estimates have a large margin of error – do not rank or compare specific regions.
The lines either side of the dots represent confidence intervals – the range of values that the 'true' value for each region is highly likely to be within. In many cases the confidence intervals overlap. This suggests differences between specific regions may not be statistically significant.
See the composite indices for more precise estimates and to understand overall regional patterns.
Data
| Region | Difference compared to average (£) |
|---|---|
| Inner London - West | 2.55 |
| Inner London - East | 27.04 |
| Outer London - South | 57.33 |
| Outer London - East and North East | 51.55 |
| Outer London - West and North West | 22.51 |
| Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire | 23.65 |
| Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire | 14.36 |
| Cheshire | -30.42 |
| Cornwall and Isles of Scilly | -16.03 |
| Cumbria | -1.31 |
| Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire | -5.93 |
| Devon | 4.50 |
| Dorset and Somerset | 16.86 |
| East Anglia | -6.61 |
| East Yorkshire and Northern Lincolnshire | -4.74 |
| Essex | 10.95 |
| Gloucestershire, Wiltshire and Bath/Bristol area | -23.57 |
| Greater Manchester | -20.97 |
| Hampshire and Isle of Wight | 22.82 |
| Herefordshire, Worcestershire and Warwickshire | 6.31 |
| Kent | -12.26 |
| Lancashire | -31.94 |
| Leicestershire, Rutland and Northamptonshire | 24.23 |
| Lincolnshire | -18.20 |
| Merseyside | -11.30 |
| North Yorkshire | 35.13 |
| Northern Ireland | -25.29 |
| Northumberland and Tyne and Wear | -22.07 |
| Shropshire and Staffordshire | -10.29 |
| South Yorkshire | -31.34 |
| Surrey, East and West Sussex | 51.06 |
| Tees Valley and Durham | -31.87 |
| West Midlands | -1.18 |
| West Yorkshire | -31.40 |
| West Wales and The Valleys | 0.94 |
| East Wales | -9.85 |
| Highlands and Islands | -13.18 |
| Eastern Scotland | -31.04 |
| West Central Scotland | 26.79 |
| Southern Scotland | -23.76 |
| North Eastern Scotland | 15.97 |
Download
For the full download file, see Download the data.
By sex
Visualisation
Mean (average) hourly earnings of people aged 25 to 29 years, by socio-economic backgrounds and sex (UK, 2014 to 2021 combined)
Click or tap on legend items to toggle visibility
Data
| Socio-economic background | Men (£) | Women (£) |
|---|---|---|
| Higher professional | 17.03 | 15.45 |
| Lower professional | 15.38 | 13.97 |
| Intermediate | 13.53 | 12.46 |
| Higher working | 12.93 | 11.64 |
| Lower working | 12.01 | 10.40 |
Download
For the full download file, see Download the data.
By ethnicity
Visualisation
Mean (average) hourly earnings of people aged 25 to 29 years, by socio-economic backgrounds and ethnicity (UK, 2014 to 2021 combined)
Click or tap on legend items to toggle visibility
Data
| Ethnicity | Lower working (£) | Higher professional (£) |
|---|---|---|
| Bangladeshi | 9.77 | 13.77 |
| Chinese | 12.88 | 18.15 |
| Indian | 11.86 | 16.72 |
| Pakistani | 10.95 | 15.44 |
| Black African | 11.98 | 16.88 |
| Black Caribbean | 11.39 | 16.06 |
| Mixed | 11.49 | 16.20 |
| White British | 10.98 | 15.47 |
| White other | 10.92 | 15.40 |
| Other | 10.93 | 15.40 |
Download
For the full download file, see Download the data.
By disability status
Visualisation
Mean (average) hourly earnings of people aged 25 to 29 years, by socio-economic backgrounds and disability (UK, 2014 to 2021 combined)
Click or tap on legend items to toggle visibility
Data
| Socio-economic background | Disabled (£) | Not disabled (£) |
|---|---|---|
| Higher professional | 13.72 | 16.56 |
| Lower professional | 12.71 | 14.88 |
| Intermediate | 12.90 | 13.05 |
| Higher working | 10.83 | 12.49 |
| Lower working | 10.40 | 11.35 |
Download
For the full download file, see Download the data.
About the data
Data source
Office for National Statistics, Labour Force Survey (LFS)
Time period
2014 to 2021 combined
Geographic area
UK
What the data measures
The data show the mean (average) earnings of people aged 25 to 29 in the UK, by socio-economic background.
Things you need to know
Self-employed respondents and those without earnings are excluded.
The data used is weighted using the LFS probability weights. The charts show 95% confidence intervals.
The estimated means and confidence intervals are derived from a linear regression model of log hourly earnings, which includes variables on socio-economic background, sex and ethnic group.
For data by ethnicity, the model assumes that class effects are the same within each ethnic group. However, the assumption does not hold for the White Other group. The means shown are those for men. Means are shown only for those with lower working-class and higher professional-class backgrounds, but other socio-economic backgrounds are included in the analysis.
Among people with a disability, those in work are a more selective group (since their inactivity rate is higher). Because of the skewed distribution of earnings, we take the log of earnings when checking for interactions between disability and socio-economic backgrounds. With this model specification we do not find a significant interaction.
For data by disability status, respondents were asked if they had a health condition or illness lasting 12 months or more, and if that condition reduced their ability to carry out day-to-day activities. This is consistent with the definition of disability in the Equality Act 2010.
The error bars show 95% confidence intervals. These intervals show where we expect the true value from a population to be 95% of the time. For example, a confidence interval with the range of values from 5 to 10 implies that there is a 95% chance that the true population value is between 5 and 10, and a 5% chance that it is outside of this range. The narrower the confidence interval or range, the more precise the estimate. Read more about confidence intervals
Type of data
Survey data
Full report
Read more in State of the Nation 2023 on GOV.UK.
Download the data
Download full dataset (CSV, 15KB)
This file contains the following variables:
- Indicator code
- Indicator name
- Area type
- Area code
- Area name
- Time period
- Socio-economic background
- Age
- Sex
- Category type
- Category
- Value
- Sample size
- Lower confidence interval
- Upper confidence interval
- Standard error
- Unit
Page history
Publication release date:
12 September 2023