Private sector services pay is up by 3%

Non-manual employees in the private sector received a median increase in basic pay of 3% in the year to 8 June 2005, according to a new survey by the Office of Manpower Economics - with their total pay (excluding overtime earnings) increasing by the same median amount.

The government body analysed 532 pay awards from 474 companies, finding that three-quarters of non-manual employees received basic pay increases of at least 2.9% while a quarter received 3.6% or more. Among the biggest employers (those with more than 20,000 employees), the median increase was significantly higher at 3.44%.

And pay rises appear to be improving - over the first three-quarters of the year to June, the median increase in basic pay was 3%, but over the final three months this rose to 3.2%.