Employment and wages

Someone is defined as being unemployed if they are not in a job or training, have looked for work in the past four weeks, and are available to start within the next two weeks.

In the chart, you can see estimates of unemployment since 1760.

In June to August 2026, 4.6% were unemployed.

Unemployment was highest in the 1920s and 1930s, when it averaged around 10%, and reached 15% in 1932, during the Great Depression.

After the Second World War, it fell below 4% and stayed there until the 1970s. Since then, rates have fluctuated from 4% to 12%.

In the 1970s, women were more likely to be unemployed than men. That reversed in the early 1980s. In 1993, 12.3% of men who were working or looking for work were unemployed, versus 7.9% of women.

Since then, the gap has narrowed. In 2025, the rate was 5.2% for men and 4.5% for women.

Young people are more likely to be unemployed. In 2025, 12.9% of economically active 18- to 24-year-olds were unemployed, compared with 3–4% of people aged 25 to 64.

Youth unemployment rises the most in recessions: it reached 19% in 2011. It has been rising again since 2022.

The typical (median) full-time employee earned £811 a week in April 2026, before tax.

Adjusted for inflation, median pay fell by 7% following the financial crisis in 2008. It only increased back to this pre-2008 level in 2026.

Pay is highest in London, where full-time employees living in the capital earned a median of £903 a week in 2025.

This was followed by the South East (£815) and the East of England (£805). It was lowest in the North East (£692) and Yorkshire and the Humber (£712).

The map shows the differences in median pay across local authorities.

This ranged from £609 a week in Boston in Lincolnshire, to £1,135 in St Albans. Many of the highest-paid areas are in London or in commuter towns around it.

The National Minimum Wage was introduced in April 1999, at £3.60 an hour for adults. From April 2026, the National Living Wage — the minimum for workers aged 21 and over — is £12.71 an hour.

Adjusted for inflation, the adult minimum wage has risen by 81% since 1999. It rose fastest after the National Living Wage was introduced in 2016, with a target of reaching two-thirds of median pay by 2024.

Younger workers have lower minimum rates: £10.85 an hour for 18- to 20-year-olds, and £8.00 for under-18s and apprentices.

In 1861, a third of jobs in the UK were in manufacturing, and around a quarter in agriculture.

Manufacturing's share stayed close to 30% until the late 1960s, and has fallen steeply since the 1970s. By 2026, it was 7%.

Services now account for 85% of jobs, up from around a third in 1861.

The chart shows the change in jobs by sector since 1978.

The number of manufacturing jobs fell from 6.7 million to 2.5 million.

Jobs in public administration, education and health grew from 5.7 million to 10 million. In finance, property and business services, from 3 million to 8.3 million.

Manufacturing is a much larger share of jobs in the East Midlands (10.5%), Northern Ireland (9.8%) and Yorkshire and the Humber (9.2%) than in London (1.9%).

Using the dropdown button, you can see these differences across different sectors.

For example, a third of jobs in London are in finance, property and business services. Public administration, education and health make up a third of jobs in Wales and the North East.

Unemployment comes from ONS's Labour Force Survey (LFS), from 1971, and the Bank of England's historical estimates before that. It uses the international definition: people without a job who have looked for work in the past four weeks and can start in the next two. Fewer people have answered the LFS since 2020: in 2023 the Office for Statistics Regulation removed its estimates' accredited official statistics status, and although ONS has since raised response, only around one in four households take part. Recent estimates are less certain, especially for small groups, and ONS plans to replace the LFS with its transformed survey as the main measure in 2027. Local unemployment rates aren't shown for now: they come from the Annual Population Survey, which has the same problems, and its small samples in each area make comparisons between areas unreliable.

Pay comes from ONS's Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE), which surveys employers about a 1% sample of jobs each April. Regional and local figures are by where employees live, from 2002.

Minimum wage rates come from the Low Pay Commission and GOV.UK.

Jobs by sector come from ONS's workforce jobs, from 1978, which count jobs, not people, and the Bank of England's historical series (from censuses and employer surveys) before that.

Figures adjusted for inflation use the CPIH index for April.