Key facts
- British wages, excluding bonuses, grew by 3.5% in the three months to July.
- Total earnings, including bonuses, grew by 3.9% in the same period.
- Real regular pay, adjusted for inflation, grew by 0.8% using CPI.
- Real total pay, adjusted for inflation, grew by 1.1% using CPI.
- Public sector annual regular earnings growth was 6.3%, while private sector was 2.9%.
British wages, excluding bonuses, grew by 3.5% in the three months to July compared with the same period in 2025, official data showed on Tuesday. Economists polled by Reuters had mostly expected regular wage growth of 3.5%. Total earnings, including bonuses, grew by 3.9% in the same period.
The Bank of England is trying to gauge whether higher energy prices caused by the Iran war will interrupt a gradual cooling of wage growth and underlying inflation pressure in Britain. Investors on Monday were pricing a roughly one-in-three chance of a quarter-point interest rate hike by the BoE on Thursday. A rate hike at the following Monetary Policy Committee meeting in November was seen as almost certain, followed by another in December.