Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what proportion of the (1) male, and (2) female working population earn £30,000 or over per annum.

The information requested falls within the responsibility of the UK Statistics Authority. I have asked the Authority to reply.

Dear Baroness Lister of Burtersett,

As National Statistician and Chief Executive of the UK Statistics Authority, I am replying to your Parliamentary Question asking what proportion of the (1) male, and (2) female working population earn £30,000 or over per annum (HL12837).

The Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings[1] (ASHE), carried out in April each year, is the most comprehensive source of earnings information in the United Kingdom. ASHE is used to produce estimates of the number and proportion of employee jobs, which are defined as those held by employees and not the self-employed. Please note that 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.

The estimate of the proportion of employee jobs earning £30,000 or more per year in April 2018[2] (the latest period for which ASHE estimates are available) in the UK is (1) 48.6% for males and (2) 24.4% for females. These estimates include both full-time and part-time employee jobs, apprentices and are based upon employees that have been in their current job for at least a year and are on an adult rate of pay.

Yours sincerely,

John Pullinger

[1]https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/earningsandworkinghours/bulletins/annualsurveyofhoursandearnings/previousReleases

[2]2018 data are provisional