Earnings in Buckinghamshire, 2018

At £30,867, Buckinghamshire has the 6th highest workplace-based median gross full-time earnings of all 27 county council areas, also ranking 6th among the 38 Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs).

For those working in Buckinghamshire, earnings fell 2.7 per cent over the last year, the lowest rate of growth among any county council area or LEP.  At £34,807, residence based earnings are the 2nd highest among county council areas, ranking 3rd among LEPs.  Residence-based earnings in Buckinghamshire grew 0.6 per cent in the last year, outpacing growth in workplace-based earnings for the fourth time in five years, taking the gap to £3,940 (12.8 per cent) at the median.

The gender pay gap for those working in Buckinghamshire reached 25.2 per cent at the median in 2018 and 21.2 per cent at the mean, the 13th highest gaps among the 38 LEPs on both measures and in both cases above the 23.0 and 21.0 per cent gaps recorded across the country as a whole.  For full-time employees working in Buckinghamshire, the gender pay gap was 12.6 per cent in favour of men at the median and 16.7 per cent at the mean.

Table 1: Annual gross median full-time residence & workplace based earnings, 2018

Source: ASHE, ONS, 2018

All four of Buckinghamshire’s districts have earnings above the national level for residents, however, following weak growth in the last year, Chiltern’s workplace-based earnings have fallen below the national level.  Aylesbury Vale saw the strongest increase in workplace-based earnings in the last year, despite failing to match the national rate of growth and ranking only 175th of all 380 local authority districts in Great Britain.  Wycombe has the highest workplace-based earning in Buckinghamshire, ranking 44th among local authorities.

Strong growth in residents’ pay in Wycombe in the last year means all Buckinghamshire districts have residence-based pay above that of local workers.  The gap is smallest in Wycombe at £1,390 (4.2 per cent), rising to £7,410 (25.1) in Chiltern, the 11th biggest gap in the country.  The gaps stand at £3,077 (9.7) in South Bucks and £3,163 (10.5) in Aylesbury Vale.

Chart 1: Gross median full time earnings (GB=100), 2018

Source: ASHE, ONS, 2018

At £31,828, the High Wycombe and Aylesbury travel to work area (TTWA) has the 14th 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 (£30,268, 19th) but behind the £32,597 recorded in the Slough and Heathrow TTWA (11th), which includes all of South Bucks except Beaconsfield and Gerrards Cross.

Over the last five years gross hourly pay at the 10th percentile for people working in Buckinghamshire has risen by 16.2 per cent, the highest rise of any decile.  For residents, the strongest growth (16.7 per cent) has been seen at the 20th percentile.  Pay growth has been weakest at the 30th percentile on the workplace-based measure (5.5 per cent) and at the 40th percentile for residents (5.0 per cent).  At the median, pay has risen by 7.2 per cent and 9.6 per cent respectively for Buckinghamshire’s workers and residents.

In the last year, hourly gross pay rose fastest at the 90th percentile, rising 3.2 per cent to £30.25, with the 20th percentile seeing the smallest rise, up 0.9 per cent to £9.00. 

The National Living Wage was increased to £8.21 for those aged 25 and over from April 2019 in October’s Budget.  Approximately 20,000 workers of all ages in Buckinghamshire earned less in 2018, including more than a quarter of the county’s 57,000 part-time employees.

At the national level, the occupations with the highest gross median full time annual pay were chief executive and senior officials (£97,083); aircraft pilots and flight engineers (£79,258); medical practitioners (£75,855); marketing and sales directors (£75,126); IT and telecommunication directors (£72,109), and other Legal Professionals (£69,992).  The highest paying industries were the coke and refined petroleum product manufacturing (£56,039); information services (£46,658), and mining support activities (£46,172).

Chart 2: Change in Buckinghamshire’s gross hourly earnings by percentile (%), 2013-2018

Source: ASHE, ONS, 2018

Table 2: Full-time annual gross median residence & workplace based earnings by sex, 2018

Source: ASHE, ONS, 2018

The ONS’s overview of the data can be found here >

Business community ambassadors