You asked
Please could you tell me how the average pay rise has been calculated at 2.3%.
We said
Thank you for your request.
We publish estimates of employee wage growth every month, as part of the UK Labour Market publication. On 13 November one of the published estimates was that regular pay growth for the period July-September 2018 was 3.2% higher than in the same period in 2017. In addition, estimates were provided for total pay growth.
These estimates are the average weekly earnings (AWE) measure. Details of how AWE is created, and its sample size, is provided in our Average weekly earnings QMI publication. You will see that the methodology employed in producing AWE is based on details of the sampled companies, not employee demographic characteristics.
We also publish - annually - structural estimates of employee earnings based on data collected in the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE). The latest estimates, relating to a reference date in April 2018, were published on 25 October 2018. ASHE has a very large sample size, facilitating publication of estimates split by elements such as occupation and age groups. The latest publication can be found here. Details of how the ASHE estimates are created are provided here.