Press Release

Average Hourly Pay In 81 Out of 204 UK Areas Below 90% Of UK Average Of £12.50 Per Hour

10 January 2006

GMB shows scope to raise national minimum wage and accuses CBI & Tory Party of deliberately misleading the British public of it’s impact on jobs

Average gross hourly pay for full time and part time men and women in the UK as a whole is £12.50 per hour according to a new analysis by GMB which ranks official data on average hourly pay in all 204 areas of the UK.(Note 1)

In Wales, North East and Northern Ireland and in 87 cities, boroughs and unitary authorities average gross hourly pay is 89% or below of the UK average of £12.50 per hour. See details for regions on page 2.

In East Midlands, Yorkshireand Humberside, South West , West Midlands, North Westand Scotlandand in 38 cities, boroughs and unitary authorities average gross hourly pay is between 90% and 95% of the UK average per hour.

In Eastern England and South East and in 34 cities, boroughs and unitary authorities average gross hourly pay is between 96% and 105% of the UK average per hour. In London and in 45 cities, boroughs and unitary authorities average gross hourly pay is 106% or above of the UK average per hour.

The GMB study shows that average gross hourly pay in 29 main cities in the UK are as follows: Stoke on Trent £10.23 (82% of the UK average of £12.50 per hour); Swansea £10.45 (84%); Hull £10.51 (84%); Sunderland £11.00, Bradford, Middlesbrough £11.02 (88%); Sheffield, Leicester £11.19, Plymouth £11.23 (90%); Wolverhampton £11.38 (91%); Brighton and Hove £11.53 (92%); Cardiff £11.62 (93%); Nottingham £11.82, Newcastle Upon Tyne £11.84, Portsmouth £11.90, Liverpool £11.91 (95%); Dundee, Glasgow £12.07, Birmingham £12.13 (97%); Bristol £1239 (99%); Southampton £12.65 (101%); Leeds £12.69 (102%); Edinburgh £13.30(106%); Manchester £13.46, Derby £13.51, Coventry £13.55 (108%); Aberdeen £13.62 (109%); Reading £15.12 (121%) and Greater London £17.30 (136%). For pay figures for all 2004 areas see GMB website

Paul Kenny GMB Acting General Secretary GMB said “These average pay figures show that there is plenty of scope to raise the national minimum wage to the £6 per hour that the GMB sought last time it was reviewed. Note 2 The Confederation of British Industry and the Tory Party misled the British public, deliberately in the GMB’s view, that the introduction and increases in the national minimum wage would lead to large scale job losses. In fact employment in Great Britain since 1997 has increased by 8.3% with 1.98m new jobs. Note 3

Workers in profitable private sector employers, like ASDA where the lowest hourly rate is just 5p per hour above the national minimum rate, need to organize in GMB to persuade the company to collectively bargaining with their workforce to secure higher levels of pay which they can well afford to pay. Note 4”

Average pay by region April 2005