Regular pay in the UK, excluding bonuses, rose by 4.2% year-on-year to GBP 691 per week in the three months to December 2025, easing from a slightly revised 4.4% in the previous period and in line with market expectations. This marked the weakest growth since the three months to January 2022, with private sector wage growth slowing to 3.4% from 3.6%, its lowest rate since late 2020. Public sector pay growth also cooled, to 7.2% from a record high of 7.9%.
By industry, the strongest annual increases were recorded in wholesale, retail, hotels, and restaurants (5.1%), followed by manufacturing (4.4%), services (4.2%), construction (2.3%), and finance and business services (2.0%). After adjusting for inflation, real wages rose by 0.5% in the three months to December, compared with a 0.6% increase in each of the previous two periods.
