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Published: 24/02/2025
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) publishes monthly updates on average weekly earnings across the whole economy and by industry and sector in Great Britain. This commentary relates to ONS’s EARN02 and EARN03 datasets, which cover non-seasonally adjusted earnings, excluding bonuses and including arrears.
Construction sector saw second highest earnings growth at end of 2024
Construction wages, as measured by ONS’s Average Weekly Earnings dataset, increased by 6.5% in the year to December 2024. This was an increase on the 6.1% rise seen in the 12 months to November 2024. On the month, earnings were down 0.6%.
Across the whole economy, the average increase in earnings in the year to December 2024 was 5.4%, down from 6.6% in November.
Dr David Crosthwaite, Chief Economist at BCIS, said: ‘Growth in construction wages and whole economy wages seem to have reached parity as construction wages made up some lost ground over the last year.
‘Wage growth is still running at above-inflation levels but is expected to stabilise over the coming months as the wider economic picture worsens’.
Annual growth in earnings was lower in construction than the whole economy average each month from April 2023 until September 2024, when annual growth in the two indexes was the same (4.8%).
Source: ONS – Construction (K5AH) and Whole economy (KA5H), non-seasonally adjusted average weekly earnings, excluding bonuses, including arrears
Comparing pay at a sector level (with index K56S), construction workers saw the second highest annual increase in average earnings across all sectors. The biggest annual increase was for workers in the wholesaling, retailing, hotels and restaurants sector.
Source: ONS – EARN02: Non-seasonally adjusted Average Weekly Earnings, excluding bonuses, including arrears, at sector level
The ONS data shows that the construction sector has experienced the most extreme fluctuations in earnings movement in recent years, from a 9.5% annual decrease in May 2020 to a 13.5% increase in May 2021.
Source: ONS – EARN02: Non-seasonally adjusted Average Weekly Earnings, excluding bonuses, including arrears, at sector level
BCIS produces five-year forecasts of the Average Weekly Earnings construction (K5AH) and whole economy (KA5H) time series for subscribers of BCIS OpX.
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