Labour market overview, UK: January 2026

• Average weekly earnings in Great Britain

• Earnings and employment from Pay As You Earn Real Time Information, UK

• Employment in the UK

• Labour market in the regions of the UK

• Vacancies and jobs in the UK

Estimates for payrolled employees based on administrative data from HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) in the UK fell by 155,000 (0.5%) between November 2024 and November 2025, and decreased by 33,000 (0.1%) between October 2025 and November 2025.

When looking at September to November 2025, the period comparable with our Labour Force Survey (LFS) estimates, the number of payrolled employees fell by 135,000 (0.4%) over the year and by 43,000 (0.1%) over the quarter.

The early estimate of payrolled employees for December 2025 decreased by 184,000 (0.6%) on the year, and by 43,000 (0.1%) on the month, to 30.2 million. The December 2025 estimate should be treated as a provisional estimate and is likely to be revised when more data are received next month. Information on revisions to payrolled employees is published monthly. We have published analysis of recent revisions in our LFS quality update article.

Estimates from January to March 2025 include the full effect of the improvements in LFS data collection and sampling methods introduced from January 2024. However, since then, we have increased the number of interviewers for the LFS, which has continued to increase the number of responses to the survey. Consequently, estimates may be subject to the effect of these further improvements, which may have an ongoing impact on the survey. An increased volatility will remain in the LFS estimates for mid-2023 and throughout 2024, so we would advise additional caution when interpreting survey change measures.

We recommend using LFS estimates as part of our suite of labour market indicators, alongside workforce jobs, Claimant Count and Pay As You Earn (PAYE) Real Time Information (RTI) estimates.

The UK employment rate based on the LFS for people aged 16 to 64 years was estimated at 75.1% in September to November 2025. This is largely unchanged in the latest quarter but above estimates of a year ago.  

The UK unemployment rate for people aged 16 years and over was estimated at 5.1% in September to November 2025. This is up in the latest quarter and above estimates of a year ago.

The UK economic inactivity rate for people aged 16 to 64 years was estimated at 20.8% in September to November 2025. This is down in the latest quarter and below estimates of a year ago.

The UK Claimant Count for December 2025 increased on the month but decreased on the year to an estimated 1.677 million. The Claimant Count figure for the latest month is provisional and is subject to revisions after first publication. This is owing to later amendments to records in the administrative systems, for example as work capability assessments conclude and more information is available about benefit claimants' ability to work. Revisions in recent months have tended to be made downwards, as shown in our LFS quality update article. Further information on Claimant Count revisions is published each month.

Early estimates for vacancies in the UK for October to December 2025 suggest a small increase of 10,000 (1.3%) to 734,000 compared with July to September 2025.

Annual growth in employees' average earnings in Great Britain for regular earnings (excluding bonuses) was 4.5%, and for total earnings (including bonuses), was 4.7% in September to November 2025. Annual average regular earnings growth was 7.9% for the public sector and 3.6% for the private sector. The public sector annual growth rate is affected by some public sector pay rises being paid earlier in 2025 than in 2024. This has caused a base effect that has now reached its peak and will phase out over the next three months.

We also publish RTI pay data, which provide a provisional, timelier estimate of median pay. The two data sources generally trend well for mean total pay.

Annual growth in real terms, adjusted for inflation using the Consumer Prices Index including owner occupiers' housing costs (CPIH), was 0.6% for regular pay and 0.8% for total pay in September to November 2025.

Annual growth in real terms, adjusted for inflation using the Consumer Prices Index excluding owner occupiers' housing costs (CPI), was 0.9% for regular pay and 1.1% for total pay in September to November 2025.

There were an estimated 155,000 working days lost because of labour disputes across the UK in November 2025. This is the highest number of working days lost since January 2024, with over half of working days lost in the health and social work sector because of the doctors' strikes in England.

This section provides additional commentary to help users assess differences between the employment-related data sources we publish.

The Labour Force Survey (LFS) is our survey of households and remains the lead measure for data on labour market participation. Workforce jobs (WFJ) primarily uses business surveys to measure employee jobs with the LFS covering self-employed jobs. HM Revenue and Customs Pay As You Earn (PAYE) Real Time Information (RTI) data come from administrative tax records and cover only payrolled employees.

Because these sources are collected and processed differently, differences in levels are expected (for example, jobs versus people, or varying reference periods). Divergence across indicators for more than one period is not unusual.

Despite the coherence challenges, the LFS remains the sole source for unemployment, economic inactivity and self-employment data, offering detailed breakdowns unavailable elsewhere.

Recent revisions and improvements

We updated our estimates of WFJ in our December 2025 labour market publication. In the latest two periods, the employee component of WFJ showed small decreases after several increases. WFJ can sometimes lag other indicators, as seen at the start of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. 

As part of ongoing work to address quality concerns with the LFS, response levels and rates have shown clear improvement, with response levels now close to their pre-pandemic level. The achieved sample, including imputed cases (the dataset size), has increased from 74,186 individuals in April to June 2025, to 75,757 individuals in July to September 2025, as shown in our LFS performance and quality monitoring report: July to September 2025. Our assessment is that efforts to bolster the achieved sample have improved the quality of the survey and moved the LFS measure of employment closer to levels indicated by RTI (see Figure 2).

These enhancements, introduced since January 2024, mean that movements in the LFS over the past year reflect both underlying developments in the economy and improved survey quality (including obtaining more responses from employed people). As a result, while levels have moved closer to RTI, measures of change may be less aligned with RTI because they capture both real labour market shifts and changes arising from the survey improvements.

Latest employee data

Figures 1 and 2 present the three employee indicators over a longer time series, including the coronavirus pandemic. RTI and WFJ employee jobs generally follow similar trends. Though they have diverged in some periods, both RTI and WFJ employee jobs have fallen in the most recent periods. The volatility in the LFS series since the pandemic is also evident. As noted previously, movements in the LFS over the past year reflect both underlying developments in the economy and improved survey quality. We therefore continue to advise caution when comparing current LFS results with earlier periods.

Our view remains that RTI provides the most reliable measure of employees and has shown a fall in 8 of the last 12 months.

Further information

In order to deepen our understanding of possible bias in our surveys, we have also launched a new project to link LFS and Transformed Labour Force Survey (TLFS) survey data with HMRC PAYE data at the record level. 

Alongside this labour market release, we have published our Labour Force Survey quality update: January 2026 article. The article provides information about current response rates, trends and known biases in LFS data, and provides users with information to better understand the current quality of the data.

View all related data on our related data page.

Alternatively, Nomis provides free access to the most detailed and up-to-date UK labour market statistics.

Average weekly earnings

Average weekly earnings (AWE) are calculated using information based on the Monthly Wages and Salaries Survey (MWSS).

AWE measures money paid by employers to employees in Great Britain before tax and other deductions from pay. The estimates are not just a measure of pay rises, because they also reflect, for example, changes in the overall structure of the workforce. More high-paid jobs in the economy would have an upward effect on the earnings growth rate.

Economic inactivity

People not in the labour force who are not in employment but do not meet the internationally accepted definition of unemployment. This is because they have not been seeking work within the last four weeks or they are unable to start work in the next two weeks. The economic inactivity rate is the proportion of people aged between 16 and 64 years who are not in the labour force. The Labour Force Survey (LFS) estimates are official statistics in development.

Employment

Employment measures the number of people in paid work or who had a job that they were temporarily away from (for example, because they were on holiday or off sick). This differs from the number of jobs because some people have more than one job. The employment rate is the proportion of people aged between 16 and 64 years who are in employment. The LFS estimates are official statistics in development.

Unemployment

Unemployment measures people without a job who have been actively seeking work within the last four weeks, and are available to start work within the next two weeks. The unemployment rate is not the proportion of the total population who are unemployed. It is the proportion of the economically active population (people in work and those seeking and available to work) who are unemployed. The LFS estimates are official statistics in development.

Claimant Count

The Claimant Count is an official statistic in development that measures the number of people who are receiving a benefit principally for the reason of being unemployed. Currently, the Claimant Count consists of those receiving Jobseeker's Allowance, and Universal Credit claimants in the "searching for work" conditionality group.

Vacancies

Vacancies are defined as positions for which employers are actively seeking recruits from outside their business or organisation. The estimates are based on the Vacancy Survey. This is a survey of businesses designed to provide estimates of the stock of vacancies across the economy, excluding agriculture, forestry and fishing (a small sector for which the collection of estimates would not be practical).

Pay As You Earn Real Time Information

These data come from HM Revenue and Customs' (HMRC's) Pay As You Earn (PAYE) Real Time Information (RTI) system. They cover the whole population, rather than a sample of people or companies, and they will allow for more detailed estimates of the population.

In July 2025, the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) published a letter confirming the accreditation of HMRC and the Office for National Statistics (ONS) statistics on earnings and employment from PAYE RTI.

A more detailed glossary is available in our Guide to labour market statistics methodology.

The estimates presented in this bulletin contain uncertainty. For more information, see our Uncertainty and how we measure it methodology.

Information on revisions is available in our Labour market statistics revisions policy.

Information on the strengths and limitations of this bulletin is available in Section 13 of our Labour market overview, UK: April 2021 bulletin.

Further information is available in our Guide to labour market statistics methodology.

Accredited official statistics

On 7 June 2024, the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) introduced the new accredited official statistics badge, to denote official statistics that have been independently reviewed by the OSR. Accredited official statistics comply with the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics.

This UK labour market bulletin includes a combination of accredited official statistics and official statistics in development (until September 2023, these were called "experimental statistics"). Read more about the change in our Guide to official statistics in development.

The following labour market outputs are accredited official statistics:

• Earnings and employment from Pay As You Earn (PAYE) Real Time Information (RTI) (accredited by the OSR in July 2025)

• Labour disputes (rapid review completed by the OSR in February 2023)

• Vacancy statistics (reviewed by the OSR in April 2022)

• Workforce jobs (WFJ) (reviewed by the OSR in April 2022)

• Average weekly earnings (AWE) (reviewed by OSR in December 2014)

The following labour market outputs are official statistics in development:

• Labour Force Survey (LFS) estimates from the Office for National Statistics (ONS)

• Claimant Count

Labour Force Survey

We have been facing the challenge of falling response rates for household surveys, as have other comparable countries. This issue became more acute in the LFS data collected for August 2023. The LFS estimates due to be published in October 2023 were suspended because of quality concerns. We developed a comprehensive plan to address these concerns and reintroduce LFS, as described in our Labour Force Survey: planned improvements and its reintroduction methodology. We reinstated reweighted LFS estimates into our monthly publication from February 2024, as described in our Impact of reweighting on LFS key indicators: 2024 article. In December 2024, we carried out a further LFS reweighting exercise, based on 2022 mid-year estimates.

Estimates from January to March 2025 include the full effect of the improvements in LFS data collection and sampling methods introduced from January 2024. However, we are continuing our efforts to further improve the response to the survey. Consequently, estimates may be subject to the effect of these further improvements, which may have an ongoing impact on the survey. An increased volatility will remain in the LFS estimates for mid- 2023 and throughout 2024, so we would advise additional caution when interpreting survey change measures. We recommend using LFS estimates as part of our suite of labour market indicators, alongside workforce jobs, Claimant Count and PAYE RTI estimates.

We are continuing to improve the quality of the LFS, building on our work to date. The achieved sample, including imputed cases (the dataset size), has increased from 74,186 individuals in April to June 2025, to 75,757 individuals in July to September 2025, as shown in our LFS performance and quality monitoring report: July to September 2025.

More information on LFS quality can also be found in our LFS quality update: January 2026 article.

Coherence of data sources

Understanding coherence challenges around our employment indicators continues to be a priority.

LFS reweighting has improved the coherence picture, as strong population growth in recent years is now incorporated into our estimates of all three labour market statuses.

We are also exploring how best to consider coherence between HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) PAYE RTI data and WFJ. As the former is essentially focused on employees, we recommend comparison with the employee jobs component of WFJ to align coverage of populations. One other important difference is that the RTI statistics published each month are a measure of people, rather than jobs, as in WFJ.

Our Comparison of labour market data sources methodology compares data sources and discusses some of the main differences.

More information on coherence of our labour market data sources can also be found in our LFS quality update article.

Labour market transformation

We have provided an update on the transformation of labour market statistics in our Labour market transformation update on progress and plans: November 2025 article.

We welcome your feedback on this latest update and our plans. Please email us at labour.market.transformation@ons.gov.uk to tell us what you think.

Coronavirus

For more information on how labour market data sources were affected by the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, see our Coronavirus and the effects on UK labour market statistics article.

Making our published spreadsheets accessible

Following the Government Statistical Service (GSS) guidance on releasing statistics in spreadsheets, we will be amending our published tables over the coming months to improve the usability, accessibility and machine readability of our published statistics. To help users change to the new formats, we will be publishing sample versions of a selection of our tables and, where practical, initially publish the tables in both the new and current formats. If you have any questions or comments, please email us at labour.market@ons.gov.uk.