Workers in the UK on salary sacrifice

FOI reference: FOI-2025-3241

You asked

Under the Freedom of Information Act, I would like to request the following information: 

1. Number of workers in the UK on salary sacrifice
2. Number of workers in the UK on salary sacrifice broken down into the number of workers in each tax band and sorted by sector of employment
3. Salary data for workers enrolled on salary sacrifice schemes, and how much is sacrificed by them monthly/annually

We said

Thank you for your Freedom of Information request regarding data relating to salary sacrifices. 

Unfortunately, we do not hold the information you have requested.  

The Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE), carried out in April each year, is the most comprehensive source of earnings information in the United Kingdom. ASHE is based on a 1% sample of employee jobs taken from HM Revenue and Customs' Pay As You Earn (PAYE) records. While a variable on salary sacrifice is collected as part of the ASHE, we do not process this data to produce the requested information. Therefore, to provide this in response to your request, we would need to create new information. ICO guidance states that information is not held, as defined by the Act, if it would need to be created and that FOIA only applies to information already held in a recorded form.

To provide some further context, we have identified that the creation of the requested information would involve: 

1. Cleaning and validating the data collected to remove erroneous values from responses. This will require validation methods to be developed by skilled survey methodologists to identify suspicious cases and such cases being investigated manually by re-contacting the responding business. 

2. The data would then need to be aggregated and be appraised by skilled statisticians to identify whether it is disclosive and/or whether it is of sufficient quality to be released 

3. As the data is not currently produced, our data processing systems will require changes beyond amendments to our data extraction and data querying tools. 

These actions would all require the application of statistical expertise and experience, involving skill and judgement, to produce new information. This information therefore is not held.

Unfortunately, we are also not in a position to offer to create this information for you as a bespoke output, due to the resource required to do so.

Although only loosely related, the following publication by HM Revenue and Customs on salary sacrifice may be of interest: Understanding the attitudes and behaviours of employers towards salary sacrifice for pensions. HMRC may be able to help with your queries.