Upward trend in pay deals isn’t enough to keep pace with prices
The 2006/07 pay round was dominated by unexpectedly high levels of inflation – hardly the most appropriate time for the government to have begun pursuing an aggressive policy of public-sector pay restraint. Our review of the pay round’s highlights and sectoral trends finds that union negotiators have had mixed success in trying to prevent real-terms reductions in workers’ pay.At the start of the pay round in August 2006, annual growth in the retail prices index (RPI) – the most widely used measure of inflation in the UK, albeit not the government’s favoured one – stood at 3.4%. This was already 0.8 percentage points above the figure just four months earlier – but within another four months, RPI growth in the year to December had risen to a 15-year high of 4.4%.
From then on, inflation remained above 4% until the last month of the pay round, July 2007, when it slipped back slightly to 3.8%; at its peak in March, it was running at 4.8%. The last time that RPI growth broke the 4% barrier was during the 1997/98 pay round, and many negotiators – not to mention financial analysts – were caught out this year by both the size of the increase and the RPI’s failure to return quickly to a level well below 4%. Workers covered by long-term agreements with inflation links have had the best protection, but many others have had to accept pay rises worth less than inflation.
The pay round was made even tougher in the public sector by Gordon Brown’s insistence, in his former role as Chancellor of the Exchequer, on “pay discipline”; this was followed by what the Institute for Fiscal Studies called the tightest squeeze on public spending for a decade in the March 2007 Budget. Prison officers, health workers and civil servants all took or threatened to take industrial action; six months after their settlement date, council workers in England and Wales are still divided over whether to accept an offer falling well below their initial claim; and police officers, who had to go to arbitration to secure a 3% pay rise last autumn, are again at odds with the Home Office and the Treasury over pay.
Payline
We have examined more than 700 agreements falling within the 2006/07 pay round and recorded on LRD’s pay and conditions database Payline; details of these agreements are set out in the supplement enclosed with this issue of Workplace Report.
Many unions’ members can use the online version of Payline to view the most recent recorded agreement for any employer – see the back page of the supplement for registration details.
To examine trends over the pay round, we calculate the median (midpoint) pay increase in each industrial sector, using each agreement’s increase on the lowest basic adult pay rate. (Those settlements where the increase on lowest basic pay is not known – because pay rises depend on individual performance, for example – are excluded from these calculations.) We use the median rather than the simple average (mean), since a few big settlements can increase the value of the average and give a false impression of the “typical” level of increase.
Using the 657 agreements with an identifiable increase on lowest basic pay, we have calculated medians based on the number of agreements and on the number of workers covered; the latter measure attaches more weight to large pay deals affecting the most workers. These median figures for different industrial sectors and sectoral/occupational groupings are listed in the tables at the end of this feature.
Key trends
The timing of the inflation surge during the early stages of the pay round was particularly unfortunate, as December’s RPI figure was published in mid-January – halfway through the busiest month in the bargaining calendar, by which time many unions and employers had reached their settlements for the year. Negotiators at these workplaces will have little choice but to try to recoup their members’ losses in the 2007/08 pay round.
The result is that the median pay increase across all industries and sectors for the entire pay round was 3.6% (or 3.0% if the figure is weighted by the number of workers covered by each settlement – a reflection of the small increases featured in major public-sector pay awards this year). This is only slightly above the median figure of between 3.3% and 3.4% for the first half of the pay round, reported in our interim assessment of the pay round six months ago (see Workplace Report, April 2007).
More importantly, it is well behind the average RPI figure of 4.1% over the pay round’s 12 months – although it is at least a significant improvement on the 3% median in the 2005/06 pay round (see Workplace Report, October 2006).
Under difficult negotiating conditions, the spread of settlements was wider this year than previously: the gap of 1.5 percentage points between the lowest quarter of pay deals (worth 3% or less) and the highest quarter (worth 4.5%-plus) was well above the 0.62-point difference in 2005/06, when settlements were heavily clustered around 3%. This measure of spread, known as the inter-quartile range, is even wider when the median figures are weighted by the number of workers covered: the gap of 2.77 percentage points (from 1.5% to 4.27%) is again far bigger than last year’s 0.75-point figure.
During the 2005/06 pay round, the median pay increase barely moved from 3.0% over the whole 12 months. But while this remained the case in the first three months of the new pay round, settlements soon began to respond to the rise in inflation; the median pay award in the three months to November 2006 was 3.4%, climbing to 3.5% in December and 3.6% across January, February and March. April, May and June each had median figures of 3.8%, and the pay round ended with a 4.2% median pay rise for the three months up to and including July.
However, fewer than one in five agreements (18%) delivered an increase on lowest basic rates worth 4.8% or more – the high point in RPI growth, achieved in March – during the pay round.
Largest increases
Many of the highest pay increases reflect specific circumstances, often involving industrial action after years of underpayment. Examples include the 30% increase over two stages for Offshore Divers, secured after 10 days of strikes in protest at “two decades of pay erosion” (see Workplace Report, November 2006), and a pay award worth 15.4% on the lowest basic rate for distribution staff at JJB Sports. The latter deal, which established a basic pay rate covering all distribution workers for the first time, was again reached in the wake of strike action – prompted in part by the company founder’s description of the GMB general union’s demand for a single rate as “barmy”.
However, a number of sizeable increases have been awarded without recourse to industrial action. By harmonising rates for its engineering employees in Central and East Scotland, the first stage of bus company First Edinburgh’s new two-year settlement was worth 9.05% for the latter group; the lowest-paid staff at the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council received an 8.6% pay increase as a result of scale-shortening in the second and final stage of a 12-month deal; the abolition of the lowest grade at mail-order retailer Grattan (alongside a general pay award of 3.5%) gave its most junior employees an 8.35% increase as they moved up to the next grade; and an otherwise unimpressive 3.3% pay increase for the Armed Forces was improved by a 9.45% hike in the minimum salary for the lowest ranks.
The national agreement for Felt Roofing Contracting provided a 7.98% increase on the General Operative rate, with all workers receiving at least 7.76%. And bus drivers at Arriva Northumberland received a 14.29% pay rise from £7 to £8 an hour in July 2007, plus a £350 lump sum as compensation for the lack of any pay increase the previous year.
A number of agreements involved increases of 5.94% on lowest pay rates, reflecting the National Minimum Wage increase in October 2006 (see box).
Minimum wage effect
As in previous pay rounds, agreements in the retail and “other manufacturing” sectors were the most likely to be directly affected by last October’s increase in the National Minimum Wage (NMW), in which the adult rate – for workers aged 22 and over – rose by 5.94% to £5.35.
Company-level agreements paying the minimum wage include those at Walkers Shortbread, Scotprime Seafoods, International Packaging, Scotmid Co-operative Society, Somerfield, Poundland, Woolworth, Argos, Shoefayre, TJ Hughes, Morrisons, Ethel Austin, Makro, Booker, McDonald’s, the Britannia Adelphi Hotel and the Carlisle Group (West Coast contract).
Hourly rates set at the NMW level are also a feature of numerous industry-level and multi-employer pay structures, including those for the Scottish Association of Master Bakers, the Wool Textile industry, Agriculture (Scotland), the Paper Box Making industry, the Environmental Engineering NJC and the Motor Vehicle Retail and Repair NJC.
In settlements such as these, the NMW can have a major effect not only on the “increase in lowest basic pay” figure but also on other pay levels and the timing of the pay award.
As the table below shows, increases of well above inflation in the NMW since its introduction in 1999 have been of significant benefit to the UK’s lowest-paid workers. But the Low Pay Commission – whose recommendations on NMW increases are invariably followed by the government – indicated last year that it might recommend more modest increases in future. With the adult rate increasing by 3.18% this month, well below inflation, the onus will be back on union negotiators to seek more substantial increases in low-paid workers’ wages.
| Date | New NMW adult rate | Increase |
| April 1999 | £3.60 | |
| October 2000 | £3.70 | 2.78% |
| October 2001 | £4.10 | 10.81% |
| October 2002 | £4.20 | 2.44% |
| October 2003 | £4.50 | 7.14% |
| October 2004 | £4.85 | 7.78% |
| October 2005 | £5.05 | 4.12% |
| October 2006 | £5.35 | 5.94% |
| October 2007 | £5.52 | 3.18% |
Long-term and staged deals
In April, we found the biggest pay rises in the first half of the pay round going to workers on existing long-term deals that involved an inflation link. New long-term deals came second, followed by existing long-term deals without an inflation link, while new one-year and short-term staged deals lagged behind on median pay increases of just 3%. Now that the results for the full pay round are in, there has been a slight change at the bottom of the table: new one-year and short-term staged deals have overtaken existing long-term deals without an inflation link, as unions in the second half of the pay round have been able to negotiate settlements that take account of the continuing high levels of inflation.
Long-term deals in their second or subsequent stage with an inflation link have continued to fare best in the current inflationary climate, with a 4.8% median increase on lowest basic rates over the year. These account for 8% of agreements in our analysis.
The median increase among new long-term deals – which make up 11% of settlements – is 4.0%. Disappointingly, given the clear evidence of the benefits of an inflation link, fewer than half of these agreements (48%) have such a link.
Accounting for two-thirds (66%) of all settlements, one-year agreements – which are grouped with staged deals having a total length of 20 months or less – have a 3.5% median across the whole pay round.
Bringing up the rear are long term deals in their second or subsequent stage without an inflation link. Comprising 15% of the settlements analysed, they have a median pay increase of 3.25%, reflecting the fact that they lock workers in to a pay formula drawn up in a time of much lower inflation.
Explicitly linking pay rises to inflation is common in the utilities, engineering and transport sectors but almost absent in others, and this may have played a part in the industrial pattern of settlements over the pay round (see below). Where an inflation link exists, the measure used is the RPI in all but two cases: freight distribution company Diaper will base its April 2008 increase on the consumer prices index (CPI), while the RPI excluding mortgage payments will be used as an underpin for the planned 3.5% increase at Stagecoach Supertram Sheffield next May.
Private and public sectors
Of those agreements where the increase on lowest basic rates is known, 83% are in the private sector (including a few charities and housing associations) while the public sector accounts for just 17%. However, public-sector agreements tend to cover more workers – even without the Local Government Services agreement for England and Wales, which has yet to win the approval of all unions, more than half of the workers covered by agreements in our analysis are in the public sector.
When it comes to the size of pay awards this year, the effects of Gordon Brown’s pay squeeze become apparent: the public-sector median increase over the pay round is almost a percentage point behind its private-sector counterpart (3% compared with 3.8%).
Sector-by-sector analysis
The energy, mining, water and nuclear industries account for fewer than 5% of agreements and 1% of workers in our analysis, but their 4.41% pay median is second only to that in transport and communications. This is a major improvement on the sector’s 2005/06 median of 3.2%, and may reflect the fact that almost a third of agreements had an inflation link and almost half were long-term deals.
Scottish & Southern Energy’s settlement was the sector’s biggest in terms of coverage: it awarded its 11,000 workers a 4.32% pay rise under the final stage of a three-year agreement. National Grid, with more than 5,000 workers, paid 4.6% in the final stage of a two-year deal based on the RPI plus 0.3%.
The sector’s highest pay rise was the 11% on lowest rates at Drax Power, accompanying a headline increase of 7.9% (based on the RPI plus 3.7%); however, this award, which comes with a £5,000 lump sum, covers the full 48 months of a two-year settlement. Celtic Energy paid its staff 7% under the first stage of a three-year deal, but the second and third stages will be less impressive at 3.3% and 1.8% respectively – with no inflation link.
However, RPI links were a feature of the two-year deals at First Hydro and Northern Ireland Electricity, both of which paid 5.1% in theis final stages this year.
Companies settling near the sector median included United Utilities and Springfield Fuels at 4.5%.
Accounting for 5.6% of agreements, the chemicals, mineral and metals manufacturing sector was just below the overall norm with a median increase of 3.45% on lowest basic rates; in 2005/06, the sector matched the overall median of 3%. One in six agreements had an inflation link, and three out of ten were long-term deals.
The 6,000 staff covered by the sector’s biggest agreement, at Corus Long Products, received 3% in the second stage of a two-year agreement. Boots Manufacturing and GE Healthcare Biosciences (Amersham plc), with workforces of 1,800 and 1,350 respectively, settled at the same level in one-year deals; while individual increases at GE were not fixed, all staff were expected to receive at least 3% under the 4% paybill increase.
The top pay rise in the sector was 5.4% (based on the RPI plus 1%) at Air Products (Acrefair), under the final stage of a three-year agreement. New one-year settlements at or near the sector median were reached at Howmet Castings and Nufarm UK (both 3.5%), and Ciba Specialty Chemicals (3.45%).
Engineering and metal product manufacturing accounts for 12% of agreements and came just above the overall norm with a median pay rise of 3.75% – up from 3% the previous year. Almost a third of agreements in this sector had an inflation link and almost half were long-term deals.
The sector’s biggest pay settlements, each covering 8,500 workers or more, were in the Vehicle Building Industry national agreement (paying 4.7%), Ford (4.25% in the first stage of a two-year agreement) and Land Rover (3.85%, based on the RPI plus 2.5%, in the final stage of a two-year deal).
The highest pay rises were at Syfer Technology (5.6%, based on the RPI plus 1%, in the second stage of a three-year deal) and Dunlop Aerospace (5.5%). Smiths Aerospace (Cheltenham) agreed a one-year deal at the sector median of 3.75%; an identical increase was awarded at Leyland Trucks in a new three-year settlement.
A diverse sector which includes agriculture and forestry, the other manufacturing sector has a 3.41% median increase – well above the 2.9% recorded in 2005/06, but below the overall norm this year. Comprising 13.9% of all agreements but covering only 4.7% of workers, the settlements in this sector were less likely to have an inflation link (only a fifth did so) or be long-term (three out of ten).
The sector includes a number of multi-employer agreements, which had a lower median increase of 3.3%. The biggest settlement, covering 77,000 workers but worth just 2.9% on the minimum rate for a standard worker, was at the Agricultural Wages Board for England; however, this did involve far larger increases for lead workers and trainees. The 50,000 workers covered by the “General Print” agreement with the British Printing Industries Federation received 3.3%, as did another 10,000 workers under the Scottish print agreement.
The highest percentage rises in the sector were 7% across the board at International Fish Canners (Scotland), and 6.85% on the lowest salary in Leather Goods (where the average increase was 5.74%).
Increases in lowest pay matching the 3.41% sector median were achieved at pie manufacturer Peter Hunt’s (where the average increase was 3.29%) and Dairy Crest, while Princes Shippams Foods settled at 3.4%.
Long-term settlements in the sector delivered a 4.6%, RPI-linked increase in the final stage of a two-year agreement at Fox’s Biscuits, and 4.5% under the second stage of a three-stage deal at Kimberly-Clark’s paper mill in Barrow.
In 2005/06 the construction industry topped the pay league with a 3.5% median increase, but this year it could only manage third place; however, its 4% figure is still well above the overall norm. Dominated by multi-employer agreements, the sector accounts for barely 3% of agreements but nearly one-fifth of all workers in our analysis. While long-term deals in the sector are common, inflation links are not – which may explain why it lost ground against inflation this year.
The sector’s biggest settlement is the Construction Industry Joint Council agreement, covering 600,000 workers and delivering a 4.35% pay rise under the second stage of a three-year deal; the final-stage increase in June 2008 will be 6%. One-year deals for the Building and Allied Trades JIC (covering 200,000 workers) and the Engineering Construction NAECI (60,000 workers) were worth 4% and 4.4% respectively.
Apart from the 7.98% pay rise in Felt Roofing Contracting, the largest increase on basic rates was 5.35% (based on the RPI plus 0.75%) over the first nine months of a 21-month agreement for maintenance workers at Network Rail. The final stage next January will be worth the the RPI plus 0.5%, subject to a minimum increase of £700.
Company-level agreements at the sector median of 4% included those at First Engineering, Jarvis Rail and (in the first stage of a two-year deal) Edmund Nuttall.
As the "Minimum wage effect" box above indicates, the retail, wholesale, hotels and catering sector is generally associated with low pay rates. A large number of 5.94% pay increases, forced on employers by the NMW legislation, helped to push its median increase on lowest basic rates to 3.5% in 2006/07, almost on a par with the overall norm and well above the previous year’s 2.5%. Just over half of the agreements analysed were long-term deals, but inflation links are rare in the sector.
Three big company-level pay deals dominate this sector, helping to explain why it accounts for just 6.2% of agreements but 15.4% of the workforce in our analysis. The 199,000 staff at Tesco received 4%, Sainsbury’s awarded 3% to its 150,000 employees over the first six months of an 18-month settlement – the final-year increase will be 2.6% – and Asda’s 130,000-strong workforce also got 3% under a deal which also re-introduced appointment rates.
While many of the sector’s employers increased pay by 5.94% in line with the NMW, a 5.77% increase at retailer Booker was used to maintain the differential of 15p an hour between its lowest rates and the NMW. And Littlewoods staff received increases worth 5.1% during the pay round, in an unusual pay deal with three stages over 24 months; the first-year increase (starting in the previous pay round) came in two parts, the second of which was worth 0.8% on 1 May this year, before the RPI-based pay rise of 4.3% for the second year came into effect on 1 July.
Settlements at the 3.5% sector median were reached at Asda (Northern Ireland), Express Gifts, Phoenix Healthcare, Co-operative Retail, Moto Hospitality and Serco Integrated Services (Turnberry Hotel).
Transport and communications account for three in ten of the agreements analysed this year, and returned the highest median pay increase of 4.45%. (Last year it came second with 3.3%.) A quarter of agreements in the sector had an inflation link, and almost half were long-term deals.
Although the executive of the CWU communication workers’ union ratified a new national deal shortly before Workplace Report went to press, details of the settlement (which has yet to be approved by the union’s members anyway) were not published in time to be included in our analysis. As a result, the final stage of the April 2006 deal, paying 1% from October 2006, is listed as the most recent pay rise for Royal Mail postal and administrative staff. Also in communications, a new two-year deal at BT is worth 4.7% in its first year for its manual and clerical workforce.
The largest settlement in transport covers 11,000 cabin crew at British Airways, whose increase of 4% with a cash underpin of £500 in the first stage of a two-year deal was worth 4.8% for those on the lowest grade. The second biggest is at delivery company TNT Express, which paid its 7,500 employees in the final stage of a two-year settlement.
Transport’s biggest pay increases, however, were at bus companies: in addition to the deals mentioned in the "Largest increases" section above, cleaners at Solent Blue Line (Southampton) received 9% in both stages of a 12-month agreement, and there was an 8% across-the-board increase at Southern Vectis.
Long-term transport deals included a new three-stage, 28-month agreement at Chiltern Railways, paying 5.6% (based on the RPI plus 1%) with a £750 underpin in its first stage. Another 5.6% increase, again based on the RPI plus 1%, was paid in the final stage of a three-year deal at train operator GNER.
The finance and business services sector, which includes housing associations, accounts for 8.3% of settlements. The median increase on lowest basic rates was 3.45%, but this takes no account of the many performance-related pay (PRP) deals with no set increase for particular grades of employee. In 2005/06 the sector had a mid-point of 3%. Inflation links are uncommon, but one in seven agreements is long-term.
The biggest increase on lowest basic rates was at the Look Ahead Housing Association, with 5.05% for staff (except those on PRP-based contracts) below the top of their pay scale. Before it hit the headlines as a result of the international credit squeeze, Northern Rock bucked the trend for PRP in banking with an across-the-board pay rise of 5%. And while the settlement at Nationwide Building Society was based on PRP with a total pay pot worth 5.59% of salaries, it offered all eligible employees a minimum increase of 4.7%.
The big banks tend not to opt for long-term deals, but Barclays is an exception – the final stage of its inflation-linked, three-year PRP agreement provided a pay pot of 4.75%. Among housing associations with long-term settlements, Circle 33 paid 3.4% in the final stage of a two-year agreement, while East Thames began a two-year deal with an award of 3.5% plus a £100 bonus.
Only 6.5% of agreements are grouped under public administration, but the sector represents 14.4% of workers analysed. Its 3% median – scarcely higher than last year’s 2.95% – puts it well below the private-sector and overall medians. Inflation links are uncommon in this sector, although nearly a quarter of agreements were long-term.
Firefighters received a 2.4% pay rise this year, consistent with the pay formula agreed after the last national dispute. Prison Officers resorted to strike action over a staged award worth an initial 1.5%. And while the local council pay award in England and Wales has yet to be agreed, a 2.5% settlement was implemented for local government services workers in Scotland.
However, some public-sector workers received larger increases, such as those at the Probation Service (4.3% on all band minima in the final stage of a three-year deal), the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (4.35% on lowest minimum as part of an 8.6% paybill increase), the Identity and Passport Service (4.13% on lowest minimum) and the Valuation Office (£600 minimum increase, equating to 5.17% on lowest rates). Civil service pay deals tend to be quite complex, involving performance-related increases or bonuses on top of movements in pay scales.
Education had a mid-point of 2.85%, dropping to 2.5% when the number of workers covered is taken into account. In 2005/06, the pay median was 3%.
The sector accounts for 5.8% of agreements but 11.9% of the analysed workforce, with one settlement – for schoolteachers in England and Wales – covering 495,000 workers. This is one of only two long-term deals in the sector (neither of which has an inflation link), and paid just 2.5% in its first stage last September; teaching unions called for the increase to be revisited (as provided for in the agreement) when inflation passed 3.25%, but they were ignored by the government.
The sector’s other staged deal, for academic and non-academic staff in higher education, lasts three years. Its first-stage increase in August 2006 was 3% or £515, whichever was the greater, and this was followed by a further 1% six months later. The total increase for the lowest grade was 5.71%.
The bulk of education agreements came from further education colleges in England. Their national agreement recommended a two-stage increase of 3% over the 2006/07 pay round, but individual colleges are free to ignore or diverge from it. Among those that did so, Loughborough College was the most generous, offering a one-off £100 lump sum in addition to an unstaged 3% pay rise. And the City & Guilds of London Institute’s October pay award comprised a general 2.5% award, additional PRP increases and the abolition of the lowest pay zone – giving the lowest-paid staff a 10.54% increase.
The health sector’s pay median this year was just 2.25%, even lower than last year’s 2.5%, and the figure drops further to 1.5% when calculated according to the number of workers covered by each agreement. There were no agreements with an inflation link in this sector, and no long-term deals.
Although not finalised until this month in England, the 2007 pay deal for NHS staff covered by the Agenda for Change (AfC) national agreement is backdated to 1 April 2007 and so is included in our analysis. The 12-month award will be worth a total of 2.5% for most grades, with staff in the lowest pay bands getting £400 – but its first-stage increase of 1.5% in the 2006/07 pay round, which applies to more than one million workers, accounts for the sector’s low median figures. (Note that the 2.5% increase was implemented without staging in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.)
AfC has a wider resonance outside the NHS workforce: in October last year, the third stage of the NHS Soft Facilities Management Contracts (England) agreement established that NHS contractors must offer terms and conditions no less favourable than those offfered by AfC, and basic pay no less than the equivalent AfC pay band.
In a separate development, from 2008/09 the newly renamed NHS Pay Review Body will make recommendations on pay for all Agenda for Change staff, extending its remit to include ancillary and maintenance and estates staff, administrative, clerical and finance staff and technicians as well as nursing and other health professions previously covered.
Other services account for just 3.5% of the agreements analysed, but their median increase in lowest basic rates was a relatively high 3.95%; last year the sector only managed to match the overall norm of 3%. One in eight agreements was a long-term deal, but only two were inflation-linked.
The biggest pay increases in this diverse sector were 5% across the board at refuse handler Sita Kirklees and a 4.75% rise for cleaners at National Museums of Scotland (alongside a 2% increase for other grades).
Affecting 20,000 employees, the BBC’s August 2006 agreement had the biggest coverage but paid just 2.8% – however, unions were able to secure concessions on pensions. The broadcaster’s offshoot BBC Resources began a three-stage, 28-month pay deal with an increase of 4% or £1000, whichever was the greater, in its first year. But the largest increase in a long-term settlement was at English National Opera, with a 4.3% increase (based on the RPI plus 1%) in the second stage of a three-year deal.
Other bargaining issues
Given the inflationary climate, securing the best possible pay rise was negotiators’ main concern in this pay round, but a range of other issues – such as shift pay, overtime arrangements or sick pay – also made their way onto the bargaining agenda in some settlements. These will be the focus of an article in November’s Workplace Report.
Median increases in lowest basic rates by sector
| Private company * | Private multi-employer | All private sector * | Public sector | All employers | ||
| Energy, water, mining, nuclear | by agreement | 4.20 (25) | 4.20 (25) | 4.80 (3) | 4.41 (28) | |
| by workers | 4.32 (47,671) | 4.32 (47,671) | 4.50 (3,100) | 4.32 (50,771) | ||
| Manufacturing (chemical, mineral and metals) | by agreement | 3.45 (37) | 3.45 (37) | 3.45 (37) | ||
| by workers | 3.00 (17,489) | 3.00 (17,489) | 3.00 (17,489) | |||
| Manufacturing (engineering and metal products) | by agreement | 3.75 (78) | 4.70 (1) | 3.75 (79) | 3.75 (79) | |
| by workers | 3.85 (57,226) | 4.70 (8,500) | 4.00 (65,726) | 4.00 (65,726) | ||
| Manufacturing (other), agriculture and forestry | by agreement | 3.50 (76) | 3.30 (13) | 3.41 (89) | 3.23 (2) | 3.41 (91) |
| by workers | 3.70 (28,203) | 3.30 (226,400) | 3.37 (254,603) | Not known | 3.37 (254,603) | |
| Construction | by agreement | 3.90 (9) | 4.31 (12) | 4.00 (21) | 4.00 (21) | |
| by workers | 3.80 (1,671) | 4.30 (1,003,200) | 4.30 (1,004,871) | 4.30 (1,004,871) | ||
| Retail, wholesale, hotels and catering | by agreement | 3.40 (36) | 4.00 (5) | 3.50 (41) | 3.50 (41) | |
| by workers | 3.00 (733,019) | 1.98 (111,380) | 3.00 (844,399) | 3.00 (844,399) | ||
| Transport and communications | by agreement | 4.56 (177) | 3.85 (1) | 4.53 (178) | 3.62 (18) | 4.45 (196) |
| by workers | 4.70 (138,255) | 3.85 (3,000) | 4.70 (141,255) | 2.90 (158,128) | 3.40 (299,383) | |
| Finance and business services | by agreement | 3.50 (50) | 3.50 (50) | 2.73 (4) | 3.45 (54) | |
| by workers | 3.50 (74,172) | 3.50 (74,172) | 2.00 (1,880) | 3.50 (76,052) | ||
| Public administration | by agreement | 3.80 (4) | 3.80 (4) | 3.00 (39) | 3.00 (43) | |
| by workers | 1.90 (1,210) | 1.90 (1,210) | 3.00 (783,515) | 3.00 (784,725) | ||
| Education | by agreement | 2.85 (38) | 2.85 (38) | |||
| by workers | 2.50 (649,248) | 2.50 (649,248) | ||||
| Health | by agreement | 2.50 (2) | 2.50 (2) | 2.00 (4) | 2.25 (6) | |
| by workers | 3.00 (2,780) | 3.00 (2,780) | 1.50 (1,379,030) | 1.50 (1,381,810) | ||
| Other services | by agreement | 3.95 (18) | 3.70 (2) | 3.95 (20) | 2.80 (3) | 3.95 (23) |
| by workers | 3.95 (9,674) | 4.00 (7,000) | 4.00 (16,674) | 2.80 (20,150) | 2.80 (36,824) | |
| All sectors | by agreement | 3.80 (512) | 3.95 (34) | 3.80 (546) | 3.00 (111) | 3.60 (657) |
| by workers | 3.85 (1,111,370) | 4.30 (1,359,480) | 4.00 (2,470,850) | 2.95 (2,995,051) | 3.00 (5,465,901) |
The table shows the median percentage increase for each sector/employer type, followed in brackets by the number of agreements/workers covered.
Note that the number of workers covered is not known for all agreements. * Includes voluntary organisations
Percentage increases on lowest basic rates
By number of agreements:
| bottom 10% | bottom 25% | median 50% | top 25% | top 10% | Average (mean) | No. of settlements | |
| All agreements | 2.50 | 3.00 | 3.60 | 4.50 | 5.20 | 3.82 | 657 |
| Private sector | 2.50 | 3.00 | 3.80 | 4.58 | 5.32 | 3.96 | 546 |
| Public sector | 2.00 | 2.50 | 3.00 | 3.43 | 4.35 | 3.12 | 111 |
| Non-manual only | 2.00 | 2.50 | 3.00 | 3.90 | 4.72 | 3.27 | 158 |
| Manual only | 2.50 | 3.00 | 3.73 | 4.58 | 5.35 | 4.00 | 289 |
| Manual and non-manual | 2.70 | 3.00 | 3.88 | 4.59 | 5.35 | 3.99 | 210 |
By number of workers covered:
| bottom 10% | bottom 25% | median 50% | top 25% | top 10% | Average (mean) | No. of workers | |
| All agreements | 1.50 | 1.50 | 3.00 | 4.27 | 4.70 | 3.28 | 5,465,901 |
| Private sector | 2.60 | 3.00 | 4.00 | 4.30 | 5.35 | 4.03 | 2,470,850 |
| Public sector | 1.50 | 1.50 | 2.50 | 2.90 | 4.00 | 2.66 | 2,995,051 |
| Non-manual only | 1.50 | 2.50 | 2.50 | 3.00 | 4.00 | 2.79 | 1,346,755 |
| Manual only | 3.00 | 4.00 | 4.30 | 4.95 | 9.45 | 4.78 | 1,674,853 |
| Manual and non-manual | 1.50 | 1.50 | 2.40 | 3.00 | 4.00 | 2.52 | 2,444,293 |