Labour market overview, UK – Office for National Statistics

Latest data

Estimates for payrolled employees in the UK decreased by 55,000 (0.2%) between March and April 2025 and fell by 115,000 (0.4%) between April 2024 and April 2025.

When looking at February to April 2025, the period comparable with our Labour Force Survey (LFS) estimates, payrolled employees fell by 78,000 (0.3%) over the quarter and fell by 51,000 (0.2%) over the year.

The early estimate of payrolled employees for May 2025 decreased by 109,000 (0.4%) on the month and decreased by 274,000 (0.9%) on the year to 30.2 million. Early estimates are subject to significant revisions as more returns are received by HMRC next month. The earlier timing of the data extract for May 2025 means these estimates are more uncertain than usual.  Additional caution is needed in interpreting these earlier estimates.

LFS estimates from January to March 2025 include the full effect of recent improvements in LFS data collection and sampling methods introduced from January 2024, and are therefore more likely to be representative of labour market conditions. An increased amount of volatility will remain in the LFS estimates from mid-2023 and throughout 2024, so we would advise caution when interpreting change involving those periods. 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.

The UK employment rate for people aged 16 to 64 years was estimated at 75.1% in February to April 2025. This is above estimates of a year ago, and up in the latest quarter.

The UK unemployment rate for people aged 16 years and over was estimated at 4.6% in February to April 2025. This is above estimates of a year ago, and up in the latest quarter.

The UK economic inactivity rate for people aged 16 to 64 years was estimated at 21.3% in February to April 2025. This is below estimates of a year ago, and down in the latest quarter.

The UK Claimant Count for May 2025 increased on the month and the year, to 1.735 million.

The estimated number of vacancies in the UK fell by 63,000 on the quarter, to 736,000 in March to May 2025. This was the 35th consecutive quarterly decline with quarterly falls seen in 14 out of the 18 industry sectors. Vacancies were 59,000 below their January to March 2020 level. Feedback from our Vacancy Survey suggests some firms may not be recruiting new workers or replacing workers who have left.

Annual growth in employees’ average regular earnings excluding bonuses in Great Britain was 5.2% in February to April 2025, and annual growth in total earnings including bonuses was 5.3%. Annual average regular earnings growth was 5.1% for the private sector and 5.6% for the public sector. RTI pay data is also published, and provides 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 1.4% for regular pay and 1.5% for total pay in February to April 2025.

Annual growth in real terms, adjusted for inflation using the Consumer Prices Index excluding owner occupiers’ housing costs (CPI), was 2.1% for regular pay and 2.3% for total pay in February to April 2025.

The number of Workforce Jobs in the UK was estimated at 37.1 million in March 2025. This is an increase of 187,000 (0.5%) from December 2024, and an increase of 304,000 (0.8%) from the level of a year ago.

Employment in the public sector was estimated at 6.15 million in March 2025, an increase of 7,000 (0.1%) compared with December 2024, and an increase of 35,000 (0.6%) compared with March 2024.

There were an estimated 47,000 working days lost because of labour disputes across the UK in April 2025.

Back to table of contents

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 divergences in our indicators for more than one period.

We have previously stated that RTI gives a more reliable read on employees and is showing a fall in the number of employees over the last seven months.

RTI and WFJ have been broadly coherent over the last few years, although WFJ is showing an increase in more recent periods. A rise in second jobs as reported on LFS may in part explain some of the increase in WFJ as it is a measure of jobs, rather than the number of employed people. WFJ can also sometimes lag our other labour market indicators, as seen at the start of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

LFS estimates from January to March 2025 include the full effect of recent improvements in data collection and sampling methods introduced from January 2024, and are therefore more likely to be representative of labour market conditions. However, an increased amount of volatility will remain in the estimates from mid-2023 and throughout 2024, so we would advise caution when interpreting change involving those periods.

Back to table of contents

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.

Back to table of contents

Average weekly earnings

Average weekly earnings (AWE) is 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 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 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 Labour Force Survey 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 Labour Force Survey 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. The PAYE RTI statistics are official statistics in development (previously called experimental statistics) because the methodologies used to produce the statistics are still in their development phase.

In June 2023, the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) published an assessment report of HMRC and Office for National Statistics (ONS) statistics on earnings and employment from PAYE RTI. HMRC and the ONS developed an action plan for focusing on the six requirements and published an update on progress on 9 December 2024.

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

Back to table of contents

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:

• 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 Office for National Statistics (ONS)
• Claimant Count
• Earnings and employment from Pay As You Earn (PAYE) Real Time Information (RTI)

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.

Reweighting increased the levels of all labour market statuses but did not address issues surrounding increased LFS volatility, resulting from smaller achieved sample sizes. LFS estimates from January to March 2025 include the full effect of recent improvements in data collection and sampling methods introduced from January 2024 and are therefore more likely to be representative of labour market conditions. An increased amount of volatility will remain in the LFS estimates from mid-2023 and throughout 2024, so we would advise caution when interpreting change involving those periods. 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. This has led to an increase in achieved dataset size, from 63,069 individuals in October to December 2024, to 69,847 individuals in January to March 2025, as shown in our LFS performance and quality monitoring report: January to March 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.

In April 2025, we published an update on our work on reconciling estimates of employment from the LFS and WFJ. This work makes several adjustments to both LFS and WFJ estimates to try and account for known differences in concepts, coverage and measurement.

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: April 2025 article.

We welcome your feedback on this latest update and our plans. Please email us at [email protected] to tell us what you think.

Coronavirus

For more information on how labour market data sources were affected by the coronavirus 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 [email protected].

Revisions to Workforce Jobs

The Vacancies and jobs in the UK June 2025 bulletin includes revisions of Workforce Jobs estimates back to June 2023. Revisions are a result from taking on updated sources of additional information. This is an annual process that usually takes place in December each year, as outlined in our Workforce Jobs QMI. These revisions were delayed to enable us to take on reweighted estimates from the LFS, as mentioned in our Revisions to workforce jobs, UK: December 2024 article.

Back to table of contents