Data from global job search engine Jobrapido has found the majority of UK salaries (53 per cent) have suffered pay freezes or decreases over the past 12 months. Nearly a quarter of salaries (24 per cent) have frozen whilst nearly three in ten (29 per cent) have decreased. The research examined the salaries of more than 1.2 million jobs across more than 20 different industry sectors across the UK between the period of July 2018 to July 2019. Those falling victim to stagnant salaries included employees working in sales/personal care and a wide range of management occupations.
Those working in education, training, business and financial operations as well as computing and mathematical occupations have suffered and taken less in their salary over the last year. With an 8 per cent drop (about £4,500 less year over year), ‘computer and mathematical occupations’ is by far the category that suffered the most significant salary reduction, also representing almost 11 per cent of the workers.
Industry sectors which have bucked the trend (47 per cent) and shown salary increases include legal occupations, life and social science occupations, construction, architecture, design and farming and fishing industries.
For more than one in four of these sectors (26 per cent), the increase has been lower than three per cent, while just a few categories had a growth over five per cent. Legal Occupations, representing just 1.5 per cent of salaries, registered the most significant increase, more than 7.5 per cent (about £3,200 more year over year).
“Undoubtedly the climate of political and economic uncertainty in the UK has taken a toll on people’s salaries over the past twelve months,” says Rob Brouwer, CEO of Jobrapido, “and the latest forecasts from the OECD predict no-deal Brexit will slice almost three per cent from the UK economic growth over the next three years compared with just 0.6 per cent from the rest of the EU. But, of course, it remains to still be seen what happens at the final Brexit hurdle.
“That said, nearly half of UK salaries have shown modest increases and there is a growth of new jobs, for example in most of the technological and fast-growing AI related fields, where demand far outweighs supply and those who have the skills are being rewarded with princely salaries,” he added.
“Whilst UK workers may have to brace themselves for a time of salary-stagnancy, current climate presents a good time to re-evaluate career paths and look at acquiring new skills or even re-training in a new occupation. Perhaps it is time for make this happen and seize available opportunities despite adversity,” concludes Brouwer.
