Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings 2010

New 2010 results from the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) were added to Nomis on 14 Dec 2010. ASHE estimates for 2009 have been revised at the same time.

Estimates are available for local authorities, parliamentary constituencies (2010), regions and countries. ASHE estimates are not available below local authority or constituency level i.e. no ward or super output area data.

Accessing ASHE Data

Headline ASHE figures for an area are available in local authority profiles and parliamentary constituency profiles. Use the wizard or advanced query options to access the full datasets which contain a wider range of variables than provided in the profiles:

• annual survey of hours and earnings - resident analysis: provides estimates for people living in an area; available from 2002 onwards.   [link to data]
  
  
• annual survey of hours and earnings - workplace analysis: provides estimates for people working in an area; available from 1998 onwards.   [link to data]

Occupation and industry breakdowns of earnings are not available for local authorities or constituencies. These analyses are available at region and country level from the ASHE pages on National Statistics website.

Background Notes

Survey details

1. The Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) is based on a one per cent sample of employee jobs taken from HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) PAYE records. Information on earnings and hours is obtained from employers and treated confidentially. ASHE does not cover the self-employed nor does it cover employees not paid during the reference period. In 2010 information related to the pay period which included 21 April.

2. The re-platforming of the PAYE system by HMRC led to a change in the way that employments were created and recorded. This affected the 2010 ASHE sample of employee jobs. A separate report (pdf) details the steps taken to produce and quality-assure the 2010 ASHE sample.

3. A Summary Quality Report for the 2010 survey describes, in detail, the intended uses of the statistics, their general quality and the methods used to produce them.
   
   
   Common pitfalls in interpreting the series
   

4. The headline statistics for ASHE are based on the median rather than the mean. The median is the value below which 50 per cent of employees fall. It is ONS's preferred measure of average earnings as it is less affected by a relatively small number of very high earners and the skewed distribution of earnings. It therefore gives a better indication of typical pay than the mean.
   

5. Various methods can be used to measure the earnings of women relative to men. ONS's headline estimates of the gender pay gap are for hourly earnings excluding overtime. Including overtime can distort the picture as men work relatively more overtime than women. Although median and mean hourly pay excluding overtime provide useful comparisons of men’s and women’s earnings, they do not reveal differences in rates of pay for comparable jobs. This is because such measures do not allow for the different employment characteristics of men and women, such as the proportion in different occupations and their length of time in jobs.
   
   
   Relevance
   

6. The earnings information presented relates to gross pay before tax, National Insurance or other deductions, and excludes payments in kind. With the exception of annual earnings, the results are restricted to earnings relating to the survey pay period and so exclude payments of arrears from another period made during the survey period; any payments due as a result of a pay settlement but not yet paid at the time of the survey will also be excluded.
   

7. For particular groups of employees, changes in median earnings between successive surveys may be affected by changes in the timing of pay settlements, in some cases reflecting more than one settlement and in others no settlement at all.
   

8. Most of the published ASHE analyses (i.e. excluding annual earnings) relate to full-time employees on adult rates whose earnings for the survey pay period were not affected by absence. They do not include the earnings of those who did not work a full week, and whose earnings were reduced for other reasons, such as sickness. Also, they do not include the earnings of employees not on adult rates of pay, most of whom will be young people. More information on the earnings of young people and part-time employees is available in the main survey results. Full-time employees are defined as those who work more than 30 paid hours per week or those in teaching professions working 25 paid hours or more per week.
   
   
   Accuracy
   

9. Revisions: In line with normal practice this release contains revised estimates from the 2009 survey results. These results take account of some corrections to the original 2009 data that were identified during the validation of the results for 2010, as well as late returns.
   

10. Coefficient of variation (CV): Nomis displays the associated CV next to each earnings estimate. The CV is the ratio of the standard error of an estimate to the estimate, expressed as a percentage. The smaller the CV, the higher the quality of the estimate.
    

11. Response: The 2010 ASHE is based on approximately 181,000 returns.