Armed Forces: Pay

(asked on 15th March 2021) - View Source

Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what the ratio of pay between an officer and a non-officer was in each year since 2010.


Answered by
Johnny Mercer Portrait
Johnny Mercer
Minister of State (Cabinet Office) (Minister for Veterans' Affairs)
This question was answered on 18th March 2021

The requested information can be found it the table below:


Ratio of median annual salary (average Officer salary relative to average Other Ranks salary) in each year since 2010:

Date

Other Ranks (OR) to Officer (OF) Pay Ratio (OR : OF)

01/04/2010

1:1.77

01/04/2011

1:1.77

01/04/2012

1:1.77

01/04/2013

1:1.77

01/04/2014

1:1.79

01/04/2015

1:1.77

01/04/2016

1:1.77

01/04/2017

1:1.73

01/04/2018

1:1.70

01/04/2019

1:1.66

01/04/2020

1:1.70

Notes:

1. The median average (mid-point of the distribution of personnel within the rank) salaries provided in this response are calculated from the annual salaries for all Regular Officers and Other Ranks as at 1-April each year. This means that the averages are based on salary at that point in the year, not what each Service person will have been paid in total across the year, which may differ, for example due to pay rate changes and promotions. Where there was a promotion within the month of March, the new rank’s rate of pay was used in the calculation.

2. Median salaries are measured as at 1 April within the financial year. Changes in the medians can therefore reflect both changes in pay rates and changes in the relative distribution of personnel within the rank.

3. The year-on-year change in average pay should not be interpreted as the growth in pay that an average service person will have experienced. The data purely reflects the change in the median salary over time and it would be unrealistic to assume that an individual's pay would follow this path. Many Service personnel also benefit from an annual increment in addition to any rise recommended by the independent Armed Forces Pay Review Body and, for senior officers, the Senior Salaries Review Body

4. The pay structure changed significantly with the introduction of Pay 16 which accounts for the large change in ratio in 2017. A simple comparison of medians between years is not possible.

5. This data uses a different method for calculating the average than the Military Salaries Index (MSI) published in the Quarterly Service Personnel Statistics and are the actual average annual salaries as at April each year.

Reticulating Splines