You asked

I would like to request data on the following:

  1. Chartered Mechanical Engineer’s pay in the UK

    • specifically in Portsmouth and the Greater London area
    • within the Medical Device, Biotechnology and Defence Industries
    • on employment and self-employment basis
  2. Cost of living in the UK

    • estimated lower and upper monthly costs of living in Greater London and Hertfordshire area.

We said

Thank you for your request.

The best source of information for Chartered Mechanical Engineers’ pay is the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE), which 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, the self-employed are not sampled and individuals with more than one job may appear in the sample more than once.

Data for Mechanical engineers’ pay in the UK and at regional level can be found in ASHE Table 15. We do not have a data table for occupation at lower levels of geography; this data can be created using the ASHE ad-hoc service, which is chargeable. If you have any questions about making a request, or require any further information, please do not hesitate to contact us at earnings@ons.gov.uk

The best source of information for the cost of living in the UK is the Living Costs and Food Survey. However, the achieved sample of the Living Costs and Food Survey is approximately 5,000 households a year and we advise that the data is not suited to analysis below regional level. Additionally, the sample is designed to achieve a spread of households across regions, but not across smaller areas such as counties. As a result, some counties could have a very low number of households sampled in any given year; we would not consider expenditure averages calculated from very low sample numbers to be reliable.

We report on average weekly expenditure with a split by NUTS 1 region and country in Table A35, which gives an indication of the cost of living in those regions. Averages are calculated using three years of data to maximise the sample size in each region. Greater London is a NUTS 1 region, whilst Hertfordshire is included within ‘East of England’.

We do not hold information that reports on lower and higher expenditure amounts, but this could be created as user requested data, for example reporting average expenditure for the lowest and highest income decile groups. We have previously created a user-requested table reporting on detailed expenditure for London households by disposable income decile group. Depending on the detail required, creating new tables may be a chargeable service as set out in our Social Surveys charge rates: for example, if total expenditure estimates are required for London and the East of England, we should be able to create this without charge; if a detailed breakdown of expenditure is needed, this is likely to be a chargeable service. Please contact LCF_Enquiries@ons.gov.uk if this is something you might wish to pursue.