Labour market overview, UK: September 2025

• Average weekly earnings in Great Britain

• Earnings and employment from Pay As You Earn Real Time Information, UK

• Employment in the UK

• Labour market in the regions of the UK

• Vacancies and jobs in the UK

• Public sector employment, UK

Latest data

Estimates for payrolled employees in the UK fell by 142,000 (0.5%) between July 2024 and July 2025, and by 6,000 (0.0%) between June 2025 and July 2025.   

When looking at May to July 2025, the period comparable with our Labour Force Survey (LFS) estimates, payrolled employees fell by 125,000 (0.4%) over the year, and by 51,000 (0.2%) over the quarter.

The early estimate of payrolled employees for August 2025 decreased by 127,000 (0.4%) on the year, and by 8,000 (0.0%) on the month, to 30.3 million. The August 2025 estimate should be treated as a provisional estimate and is likely to be revised when more data are received next month.

Estimates from January to March 2025 include the full effect of the improvements in LFS data collection and sampling methods introduced from January 2024. However, we are continuing our efforts to further improve the response to the survey. Consequently, estimates may be subject to the effect of these further improvements, which may have an ongoing impact on the survey. An increased volatility will remain in the LFS estimates for mid- 2023 and throughout 2024, so we would advise additional caution when interpreting survey change measures. We recommend using LFS estimates as part of our suite of labour market indicators, alongside workforce jobs, Claimant Count and Pay As You Earn (PAYE) Real Time Information (RTI) estimates.

The UK employment rate for people aged 16 to 64 years was estimated at 75.2% in May to July 2025. This is up in the latest quarter and above estimates of a year ago.

The UK unemployment rate for people aged 16 years and over was estimated at 4.7% in May to July 2025. This is up in the latest quarter and above estimates of a year ago.

The UK economic inactivity rate for people aged 16 to 64 years was estimated at 21.1% in May to July 2025. This is down in the latest quarter and below estimates of a year ago.

The UK Claimant Count for August 2025 increased on the month but decreased on the year to 1.686 million.

The estimated number of vacancies in the UK fell by 10,000 (1.4%) on the quarter, to 728,000, in June to August 2025. This is the 38th consecutive period where vacancy numbers have dropped compared with the previous three months, with vacancies decreasing in 9 of the 18 industry sectors.

The estimated number of workforce jobs in the UK was 36.8 million in June 2025, this is a decrease of 182,000 (0.5%) from March 2025, but an increase of 139,000 (0.4%) from the level of a year ago. 

Employment in the public sector was estimated at 6.17 million in June 2025, an increase of 17,000 (0.3%) compared with March 2025, and an increase of 75,000 (1.2%) compared with June 2024.  

Annual growth in employees' average earnings in Great Britain for regular earnings (excluding bonuses) was 4.8%, and for total earnings (including bonuses) was 4.7% in May to July 2025. Annual average regular earnings growth was 5.6% for the public sector and 4.7% for the private sector. RTI pay data are also published and provide a provisional, timelier estimate of median pay. The two data sources generally trend well for mean total pay.  

Annual growth in real terms, adjusted for inflation using the Consumer Prices Index including owner occupiers' housing costs (CPIH), was 0.7% for regular pay and 0.5% for total pay, in May to July 2025.

Annual growth in real terms, adjusted for inflation using the Consumer Prices Index excluding owner occupiers' housing costs (CPI), was 1.2% for regular pay and 1.0% for total pay, in May to July 2025.

There were an estimated 83,000 working days lost because of labour disputes across the UK in July 2025. Most of the strikes were in the health and social work sector.

In this section, we supply additional commentary to help users assess the different sources of data we publish on employment and related indicators.

The Labour Force Survey (LFS) is our survey of households, while workforce jobs (WFJ) is based mainly on business surveys for employee jobs, with the LFS covering self-employed jobs. HM Revenue and Customs Pay As You Earn (PAYE) Real Time Indicators (RTI) data are derived from administrative tax records, and only cover payrolled employees.

Each of these three sources are collected and processed in different ways, so we do expect differences in levels (for example, jobs versus people, differing reference periods). It is not unusual to see divergence in our indicators for more than one period.

Our view continues to be that RTI gives a more reliable read on employees, and is showing a fall in 10 of the last 12 months.

Figure 1 shows the three indicators over a longer time series, including the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic period. RTI and WFJ employee jobs tend to follow similar trends, although they diverged in some recent periods, a pattern that has also occurred previously.

The volatility in the LFS series since the pandemic period is also shown. RTI data generally show a decline in employees over the last 12 months, while the LFS shows increases. Caution is still advised when comparing the current LFS results with previous periods.

Over the last year, level estimates of the number of employees from the LFS have converged with those from the RTI. This is likely at least in part because of the improvements we made to the LFS since January 2024. However, the steady improvement in the quality of levels estimates means that our measures of change have seen lower coherence with RTI, as change estimates include both "real" change in the labour market and change caused by improvements to the operation of the LFS. 

In the most recent period, the employee element of workforce jobs showed a small decrease, following a series of increases. WFJ can also sometimes lag our other labour market indicators, as seen at the start of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Note that the next publication of workforce jobs in December will include the annual benchmarking process which will revise previously published data.

In this release, we have updated the X03 table, which details our work on reconciling employment estimates from the LFS and WFJ. These updates incorporate adjustments to account for known measurement and conceptual differences providing an assessment of the comparability and coherence between the two sources. When known differences are accounted for, the two series also show convergence over the recent periods. The latest published WFJ estimate for June 2025 is 1.304 million (or 3.7%) higher than the LFS total jobs estimate for May to July 2025. Once adjusted for measurable factors, the WFJ June 2025 estimate is 0.534 million (or 1.5%) higher than the LFS jobs estimate for May to July 2025.

Despite these coherence challenges, the LFS continues to be the sole source of data for unemployment, economic inactivity and self-employment. The survey provides a range of breakdowns that are only possible from LFS data.

We are continuing to improve the quality of the LFS, building on our work to date. The achieved sample, including imputed cases (the dataset size), has increased from 69,847 individuals in January to March 2025, to 74,186 individuals in April to June 2025, as shown in our LFS performance and quality monitoring report: April to June 2025.

Alongside this labour market publication in September 2025, we published an article on Labour Market quality. The article provides information about current response rates, trends and known biases in LFS data and provides users with information to better understand the current quality of the data.

View all related data on our related data page.

Alternatively, Nomis provides free access to the most detailed and up-to-date UK labour market statistics.

Average weekly earnings

Average weekly earnings (AWE) are calculated using information based on the Monthly Wages and Salaries Survey (MWSS).

AWE measures money paid by employers to employees in Great Britain before tax and other deductions from pay. The estimates are not just a measure of pay rises, because they also reflect, for example, changes in the overall structure of the workforce. More high-paid jobs in the economy would have an upward effect on the earnings growth rate.

Economic inactivity

People not in the labour force who are not in employment but do not meet the internationally accepted definition of unemployment. This is because they have not been seeking work within the last four weeks or they are unable to start work in the next two weeks. The economic inactivity rate is the proportion of people aged between 16 and 64 years who are not in the labour force. The Labour Force Survey (LFS) estimates are official statistics in development.

Employment

Employment measures the number of people in paid work or who had a job that they were temporarily away from (for example, because they were on holiday or off sick). This differs from the number of jobs because some people have more than one job. The employment rate is the proportion of people aged between 16 and 64 years who are in employment. The LFS estimates are official statistics in development.

Unemployment

Unemployment measures people without a job who have been actively seeking work within the last four weeks, and are available to start work within the next two weeks. The unemployment rate is not the proportion of the total population who are unemployed. It is the proportion of the economically active population (people in work and those seeking and available to work) who are unemployed. The LFS estimates are official statistics in development.

Claimant Count

The Claimant Count is an official statistic in development that measures the number of people who are receiving a benefit principally for the reason of being unemployed. Currently, the Claimant Count consists of those receiving Jobseeker's Allowance, and Universal Credit claimants in the "searching for work" conditionality group.

Vacancies

Vacancies are defined as positions for which employers are actively seeking recruits from outside their business or organisation. The estimates are based on the Vacancy Survey. This is a survey of businesses designed to provide estimates of the stock of vacancies across the economy, excluding agriculture, forestry and fishing (a small sector for which the collection of estimates would not be practical).

Pay As You Earn Real Time Information

These data come from HM Revenue and Customs' (HMRC's) Pay As You Earn (PAYE) Real Time Information (RTI) system. They cover the whole population, rather than a sample of people or companies, and they will allow for more detailed estimates of the population.

In July 2025, the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) published a letter confirming the accreditation of HMRC and the Office for National Statistics (ONS) statistics on earnings and employment from PAYE RTI.

A more detailed glossary is available in our Guide to labour market statistics methodology.

The estimates presented in this bulletin contain uncertainty. For more information, see our Uncertainty and how we measure it methodology.

Information on revisions is available in our Labour market statistics revisions policy.

Information on the strengths and limitations of this bulletin is available in Section 13 of our Labour market overview, UK: April 2021 bulletin.

Further information is available in our Guide to labour market statistics methodology.

Accredited official statistics

On 7 June 2024, the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) introduced the new accredited official statistics badge, to denote official statistics that have been independently reviewed by the OSR. Accredited official statistics comply with the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics.

This UK labour market bulletin includes a combination of accredited official statistics and official statistics in development (until September 2023, these were called "experimental statistics"). Read more about the change in our Guide to official statistics in development.

The following labour market outputs are accredited official statistics:

• Earnings and employment from Pay As You Earn (PAYE) Real Time Information (RTI) (accredited by the OSR in July 2025)

• Labour disputes (rapid review completed by the OSR in February 2023)

• Vacancy statistics (reviewed by the OSR in April 2022)

• Workforce jobs (WFJ) (reviewed by the OSR in April 2022)

The following labour market outputs are official statistics in development:

• Labour Force Survey (LFS) estimates from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) Claimant Count

Labour Force Survey

We have been facing the challenge of falling response rates for household surveys, as have other comparable countries. This issue became more acute in the Labour Force Survey (LFS) data collected for August 2023. The LFS estimates due to be published in October 2023 were suspended because of quality concerns. We developed a comprehensive plan to address these concerns and reintroduce LFS, as described in our Labour Force Survey: planned improvements and its reintroduction methodology. We reinstated reweighted LFS estimates into our monthly publication from February 2024, as described in our Impact of reweighting on LFS key indicators: 2024 article. In December 2024, we carried out a further LFS reweighting exercise, based on 2022 mid-year estimates.

Estimates from January to March 2025 include the full effect of the improvements in LFS data collection and sampling methods introduced from January 2024. However, we are continuing our efforts to further improve the response to the survey. Consequently, estimates may be subject to the effect of these further improvements, which may have an ongoing impact on the survey. An increased volatility will remain in the LFS estimates for mid- 2023 and throughout 2024, so we would advise additional caution when interpreting survey change measures. We recommend using LFS estimates as part of our suite of labour market indicators, alongside workforce jobs, Claimant Count and Pay As You Earn Real Time Information (PAYE RTI) estimates.

We are continuing to improve the quality of the LFS, building on our work to date. The achieved sample, including imputed cases (the dataset size), has increased from 69,847 individuals in January to March 2025, to 74,186 individuals in April to June 2025, as shown in our LFS performance and quality monitoring report: April to June 2025

More information on LFS quality can also be found in our LFS quality article.

Coherence of data sources

Understanding coherence challenges around our employment indicators continues to be a priority.

LFS reweighting has improved the coherence picture, as strong population growth in recent years is now incorporated into our estimates of all three labour market statuses.

We are also considering how best to consider coherence between HM Revenue and Customs's (HMRC's) PAYE RTI data and WFJ. As the former is essentially focused on employees, we recommend comparison with the employee jobs component of WFJ to align coverage of populations. One other important difference is that the RTI statistics published each month are a measure of people, rather than jobs, as in WFJ.

Our Comparison of labour market data sources methodology compares data sources and discusses some of the main differences.

More information on Coherence of our labour market data sources can also be found in our LFS quality article.

Labour market transformation

We have provided an update on the transformation of labour market statistics in our Labour market transformation update on progress and plans: July 2025 article.

We welcome your feedback on this latest update and our plans. Please email us at labour.market. transformation@ons.gov.uk to tell us what you think.

Coronavirus

For more information on how labour market data sources were affected by the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, see our Coronavirus and the effects on UK labour market statistics article.

Making our published spreadsheets accessible

Following the Government Statistical Service (GSS) guidance on releasing statistics in spreadsheets, we will be amending our published tables over the coming months to improve the usability, accessibility and machine readability of our published statistics. To help users change to the new formats, we will be publishing sample versions of a selection of our tables and, where practical, initially publish the tables in both the new and current formats. If you have any questions or comments, please email us at labour.market@ons.gov.uk.

Pre-release data

The Bank of England were granted exceptional pre-release access to our Labour market overview, UK: September 2025 bulletin and accompanying tables at 8:30am on Monday 15 September 2025. This was so that the data were available for the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting held on that day. For further information, see the Exchange of letters requesting exceptional pre-release access.