UK Pay Freeze: Private and Public Sector Pay Awards Tumble

Workers in both the private and public sectors should expect pay awards to remain weak until 2014, after the latest set of data from pay specialists XpertHR revealed that pay rises fell over the last three months.

According to the pay award statistics from XpertHR, the median across-the-board pay rise for employees in the three months to the end of April fell by 0.5% to 2%, compared with the three months to the end of March 2013.

"The latest pay settlement data shows that April pay awards are lower than those concluded at the beginning of the year," said Sheila Attwood, XpertHR pay and benefits editor.

"The lack of a boost to pay settlements will be disappointing for employees, especially as retail prices index (RPI) inflation increased in March and is expected to continue rising into the summer.

"All the evidence now points to 2013 being another year of weak pay awards."

The monthly pay award statistics are based on the largest sample of pay deals collected in the UK.

Every year XpertHR collects details of in excess of 1,600 pay settlements.

The latest set of data also showed that only one in five pay awards were higher than the previous award for the same employee group, and the most common pay increase was 2%.

Just over one pay award in 10 resulted in a pay freeze.

Public sector employees have naturally been awarded the most modest pay rises, with only an average 1% increase, after two years of pay freezes.

However, private-sector pay awards in the key month of April did not fare any better.

The median pay increase for private-sector employees stands at just 2%, down from 2.5% in the three months to the end of March 2013, which is at the same level recorded in the equivalent period last year.