FOI Reference: FOI/2022/4388
You asked
I would like the average annual salary data (per year) from 1 January 1970 to as recent as possible.
We said
Thank you for your Freedom of Information request regarding average annual salary data (per year) from 1970 to as recent as possible.
The Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE), carried out in April each year, is the most comprehensive source of earnings information in the United Kingdom. ASHE is based on a 1% sample of employee jobs taken from HM Revenue and Customs' Pay As You Earn (PAYE) records. Consequently, individuals with more than one job may appear in the sample more than once. ASHE does not cover the self-employed or employees not paid during the reference period. ASHE information relates to gross pay before tax, National Insurance or other deductions, and excludes payments in kind.
Average annual earnings are available in table 1.7a of the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings:
Annual earnings are only held back to 1999 as this information was not collected prior to this. However, a timeseries going further back with median weekly earnings has been published, with data from 1968-2021 for Great Britain; this release contains data from both the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings and the New Earnings Survey; the New Earnings Survey is the predecessor to the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings. Please note there may be certain methodological differences when measuring the earnings of employees and as such certain points may not be directly comparable.