A widening wage gap?
Official figures for average weekly earnings in January for regular pay (excluding bonuses) in the whole economy continue to show growth at 4.1%. However, this growth shows a widening economic gap between financial and business services which grew at 7.1%, the public sector at 5.5% and manufacturing, which fell to less than 2%. The data is likely still being driven by a fall in the number and proportion of lower-paid employee jobs during the pandemic. Underlying growth is likely to be below 3%.
LRD Payline data on agreed deals is for February. It shows an across the board median increase at 2.0%, but this is still based on less data than normal. The biggest growth has largely been in public sector pay.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/earningsandworkinghours