In the UK, regular pay (not including bonuses) increased by 4.6% in the three months leading up to September 2025 compared to the year before. The average regular weekly pay was GBP 684.
This rate of increase was slightly slower than the 4.7% rise seen in the previous three months and matched what analysts expected. In fact, this was the slowest growth in regular pay since early 2022.
This slowdown was mainly because private sector wages slowed down to 4.2% (from 4.4%), reaching their lowest point since late 2021.
However, public sector pay saw a sharp increase, accelerating to $6.6\%$ (up from $6.0\%$), which was the fastest rise since late 2023.
Looking at different job sectors, the biggest yearly pay jumps were in wholesale, retail, hotels, and restaurants (5.7%). Other gains were seen in services (4.7%), manufacturing (4.4%), construction (3.5%), and finance and business services (2.7%).When considering the effect of rising prices (inflation), the actual spending power of wages only grew by 0.5%, which is the slowest ‘real wage’ growth since 2023.
The UK’s unemployment rate rose to 5.0% in the third quarter of 2025. This is the highest rate since May 2021 and was slightly worse than analysts had predicted (4.9%).
The total number of people out of work went up by 117,000 from the previous quarter, reaching 1.789 million. This increase was mostly seen in two groups: people who were recently unemployed (up to six months) and those who have been jobless for a very long time (over a year).
At the same time, the total number of people with jobs fell by 22,000 to 34.192 million. This was the first time employment has dropped since early 2024 and was mainly due to fewer full-time jobs.
Interestingly, the number of people holding a second job went up slightly to 1.33 million. Overall, the percentage of people with jobs (the employment rate) fell slightly to 75.0%.
The softer data has already seen market participants increase expectations of a December rate cut from the Bank of England.