Earnings in Buckinghamshire, 2016

By Buckinghamshire Business First
31 October, 2016

At £30,587, Buckinghamshire has the 4th highest workplace-based median gross full-time earnings of all 27 county council areas, ranking 6th among the 39 LEPs;
The gender pay gap at the median for full-time work is £8,807 for residents and £4,466 for those working in Buckinghamshire (30.6 and 15.8 per cent respectively);
The median full-time earnings of women living in Buckinghamshire are the 3rd highest of all county council areas, with workplace based earnings ranking 5th;
Gross hourly pay at the 10th percentile for people working in Buckinghamshire rose by 5.2 per cent in 2016, following the introduction of the National Living Wage, well ahead of the mean change (0.8 per cent) but below the 8.3 per cent change recorded at the median;
The gap between the gross median full-time pay of those living and those working in Buckinghamshire closed to 6.8 per cent or £2,069 in 2016.

At £30,587, Buckinghamshire has the 4th highest workplace-based median gross full-time earnings of all 27 county council areas, ranking 5th among the 39 Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs), having risen by 5.8 per cent over the last year, more than double the national rate and the strongest growth of any county council area or LEP. At £32,656, residence based earnings are the 3rd highest among county council areas and 6th among LEPs, 15.3 per cent above the national level. However, residence based earnings grew by just 1.0 per cent in 2016, less than half the national rate of growth, so that while at 6.8 per cent (£2,069) the gap between residence and workplace pay remains more than double the South East’s gap, it is the closest residence and workplace pay has been in Buckinghamshire since comparable records began in 2008.

Table 1: Annual gross median full-time residence & workplace based earnings, 2016

Source: ASHE, ONS, 2016

All four Buckinghamshire’s districts have earnings above the national level for residents, while earnings for those working in Aylesbury Vale remain below the national median despite rising 8.4 per cent over the year to record the 34th strongest increases among the 380 local authorities in Great Britain.

Chart 1: Gross median full time earnings (GB=100), 2016[1]

Source: ASHE, ONS, 2015

At £31,092, the High Wycombe and Aylesbury travel to work area (TTWA) has the 10th highest workplace-based gross median full-time earnings of all 151 TTWAs in England, ahead of the Milton Keynes TTWA which includes Buckingham and Winslow (£30,065, 13th) but behind the £33,062 recorded in the Slough and Heathrow TTWA, which includes all of South Bucks except Beaconsfield and Gerrards Cross, to rank 6th behind the Whitehaven, London, Newbury, Basingstoke and Reading TTWAs.

Since 2012, workplace-based earnings for all employee jobs have polarised in Buckinghamshire, with gross hourly earnings rising faster at the 75th percentile than at the median, which in turn saw faster growth than the 25th percentile. In 2012, gross hourly earnings were 45.7 per cent of the level at the 75th percentile, by 2016 that had fallen to 44.9 per cent. In contrast, residents at the 25th percentile have seen hourly earnings rise more quickly than those at the 75th percentile. Despite this, in 2016 residents’ hourly earnings at the 25th percentile were still only 46.4 per cent of those at the 75th.

Over the last year, gross hourly pay at the 10th percentile for people working in Buckinghamshire rose by 5.2 per cent, following the introduction of the National Living Wage, well ahead of the mean change (0.8 per cent) but below the 8.3 per cent change recorded at the median.

Chart 2: Change in Buckinghamshire’s gross hourly earnings by percentile (%), 2012-2016

Source: ASHE, ONS, 2016

Women’s pay rose faster than men’s on both residence and workplace-based measures in 2016, so that women’s median gross full-time pay was 86.3 per cent of men’s for employees working in Buckinghamshire and 76.6 per cent for residents, both the highest since comparable records began in 2008. The gender pay gap at the median for full-time work is £8,807 for residents and £4,466 for those working in Buckinghamshire, men’s pay being 30.6 and 15.8 per cent higher respectively.