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1. Main facts and figures
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in the last 3 months of 2016, the average (mean) hourly pay for all employees was £13.69
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in the last 3 months of 2016, the average hourly pay for White employees was £13.75, while the average hourly pay for employees from all other ethnic groups combined was £13.18
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Indian employees had the highest average hourly pay (£15.81), while Pakistani/Bangladeshi employees had the lowest average hourly pay (£11.42)
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on average, employees from the Mixed and Indian ethnic groups earned more per hour than White employees, whereas those from the Pakistani/Bangladeshi, Black, and Other ethnic groups earned less
Things you need to know
These figures come from the Labour Force Survey (LFS), which is a study of the employment circumstances of the UK population. It is the largest household study in the UK and provides the official measures of employment and unemployment.
Employees report their own hourly rates of pay as part of the survey. If an individual is not available for interview, someone else in the same household may answer on their behalf (known as a 'proxy').
Using self-reported and proxy answers carries a risk of error in the figures given. As a result, the LFS is known to underestimate the actual rates of gross weekly pay and hourly pay.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) excludes estimates of earnings greater than £100 per hour when it publishes results based on the LFS. Such high values are not very common, but they can have a big influence on the mean hourly pay. Excluding them allows the survey to give more accurate estimates of hourly pay for the wider population.
Respondents to this survey are interviewed 5 times – once every 3 months – but are only asked about their hourly pay in the first and last of these interviews. For this reason, ONS recommends that any estimate of change over the short term be made with caution.
These findings show the mean (average) hourly pay for employees in each ethnic group. In reality, employees’ pay will reflect factors besides ethnicity, such as the industry they work in and their occupation, qualifications, experience and seniority. Where some employees have much higher incomes than others in the same ethnic group, the mean hourly pay for that ethnic group will be higher. As a result it may not accurately represent the pay of the less well-paid employees in that group.
What the data measures
This data measures the average (‘mean’) gross hourly pay for all employees aged 16 and over in the UK.
‘Gross hourly pay’ is an employee’s hourly pay before any deductions for things like tax and National Insurance.
The ethnic categories used in this data
The analysis uses the following broad ethnic categories, based on the 2001 Census:
- Black
- Indian
- Mixed
- Pakistani/Bangladeshi
- White
- Other (which includes Chinese, Other Asian and Other ethnic groups)
This analysis distinguishes between the Indian ethnic group and the Pakistani and Bangladeshi groups (which are combined). This reflects the different employment-related outcomes among different Asian ethnic groups, and is in line with other publications on the official labour market statistics website, Nomis.
2. Average hourly pay by ethnicity
| Ethnicity | Jan-Mar 2013 | Apr-Jun 2013 | Jul-Sep 2013 | Oct-Dec 2013 | Jan-Mar 2014 | Apr-Jun 2014 | Jul-Sep 2014 | Oct-Dec 2014 | Jan-Mar 2015 | Apr-Jun 2015 | Jul-Sep 2015 | Oct-Dec 2015 | Jan-Mar 2016 | Apr-Jun 2016 | Jul-Sep 2016 | Oct-Dec 2016 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| £ | £ | £ | £ | £ | £ | £ | £ | £ | £ | £ | £ | £ | £ | £ | £ | |
| All | 13.00 | 13.09 | 13.13 | 12.95 | 13.15 | 13.08 | 13.29 | 13.22 | 13.33 | 13.49 | 13.36 | 13.50 | 13.56 | 13.80 | 13.82 | 13.69 |
| Ethnic minorities (excluding White minorities) | 12.84 | 12.67 | 12.69 | 12.43 | 12.81 | 12.26 | 13.41 | 12.65 | 12.56 | 12.79 | 12.89 | 13.61 | 13.60 | 13.86 | 13.33 | 13.18 |
| Black | 11.97 | 11.39 | 12.74 | 12.18 | 12.85 | 11.46 | 12.22 | 11.68 | 11.07 | 12.04 | 11.73 | 12.00 | 11.75 | 12.27 | 11.80 | 11.88 |
| Indian | 13.36 | 14.34 | 14.87 | 14.02 | 14.15 | 14.08 | 14.77 | 14.35 | 14.55 | 14.47 | 14.84 | 15.92 | 16.03 | 14.86 | 14.90 | 15.81 |
| Pakistani/ Bangladeshi | 9.82 | 11.32 | 10.48 | 10.38 | 10.96 | 11.31 | 9.07 | 10.62 | 12.24 | 11.84 | 11.28 | 12.67 | 12.24 | 12.35 | 10.84 | 11.42 |
| Mixed | 16.34 | 13.57 | 12.48 | 11.10 | 12.77 | 11.39 | 15.25 | 15.17 | 12.47 | 13.21 | 12.54 | 13.68 | 14.69 | 14.95 | 13.04 | 14.61 |
| White | 13.01 | 13.14 | 13.18 | 13.01 | 13.19 | 13.17 | 13.27 | 13.29 | 13.42 | 13.57 | 13.42 | 13.49 | 13.56 | 13.79 | 13.89 | 13.75 |
| Other | 13.57 | 12.68 | 12.04 | 12.67 | 12.46 | 11.98 | 15.27 | 12.21 | 12.45 | 12.53 | 13.30 | 13.98 | 13.14 | 14.80 | 14.57 | 13.03 |
Download table data for ‘Average hourly pay by ethnicity’ (CSV) Source data for ‘Average hourly pay by ethnicity’ (CSV)
Summary of Average hourly pay Average hourly pay by ethnicity Summary
This data shows that:
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the average hourly pay in the last 3 months of 2016 was £13.69, and the average hourly pay in the same 3 months of 2013 was £12.95
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in the last 3 months of 2016, Indian employees had the highest average hourly pay, at £15.81 an hour, while Pakistani and Bangladeshi employees had the lowest, at £11.42 an hour (a difference of £4.39 an hour)
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the gap between the average hourly pay of Indian employees and Pakistani and Bangladeshi employees was wider in the last 3 months of 2016 compared with the same period in 2013 (when the gap was £3.64 an hour)
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since 2013, the average hourly pay of Indian employees has tended to be the highest out of all ethnic groups, while the average hourly pay of Pakistani and Bangladeshi employees has tended to be the lowest
3. Methodology
The data gives estimates of earnings based on the Labour Force Survey (LFS).
This analysis uses the ‘mean’ average to report hourly pay. The mean is worked out by adding up the hourly pay of all respondents and dividing by the number of respondents.
The choice of the 'mean' as a measure of average hourly pay is affected by extreme measures which may not reflect some of the lower paid people in each ethnic group. ONS has taken steps to reduce this impact particularly where values over £100 may have been given in error. Using the 'median' as a measure of average pay would be unreliable for ethnic groups where there were small numbers of respondents. (For each ethnic group, if every respondent was lined up in the order of their hourly pay, the median would be the hourly pay of the person in the middle.)
The data on employees’ earnings captured by the LFS is thought to be of a lower quality than other sources, such as the Annual Survey of Hours and Earning (ASHE) and the Average Weekly Earnings survey (AWE). This is because employees report the information themselves rather than their employers. However, this analysis uses LFS because neither ASHE nor AWE collect data on employees’ ethnicity.
The LFS has been held continuously since 1992. It is designed to produce nationally representative results for any 3-month period.
Each sample in the LFS is made up of 5 waves. The sample consists of approximately 40,000 UK households and 100,000 individuals per quarter. Respondents are interviewed for 5 successive waves at 3-monthly intervals and 20% of the sample is replaced every quarter. Respondents are only asked about their pay in the first and last of these interviews. The response rate for October to December 2016 was 42%.
All surveys carry the risk of biased results if some types of people were less likely to respond than others. To compensate for this, the responses to this survey have been weighted so they better reflect characteristics of the target population. The weighting scheme was designed so that the sample reflects the target population's age and sex profile, as well as its geographic spread (region and local authority).
Suppression rules and disclosure control
Sample sizes of less than 30 have been suppressed.
Results above £100 an hour have been excluded because they affect the quality of the data.
‘Suppression’ means these figures have not been included in the data, to protect confidentiality and because the numbers involved are too small to draw any reliable conclusions.
Rounding
Figures have been rounded to the nearest pence.
Quality and methodology information
4. Data sources
Source
Labour Force Survey, 2013 to 2016
Type of data
Survey data
Type of statistic
Official statistics
Publisher
Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy
Publication frequency
Ad-hoc
Purpose of data source
The Labour Force Survey (LFS) measures all aspects of people's work, including the education and training needed to equip them for work, the jobs themselves, job search for those out of work, and income from work and benefits.
The primary purpose of the LFS is to provide good quality point in time and change estimates for various labour market outputs and related topics.
5. Download the data
Time, ethnicity, denominator (weighted and unweighted)