Work and Salaries

Administrative occupations: salary in the UK

What administrative occupations earn across the United Kingdom, measured by the Office for National Statistics in its annual survey of employers' payroll records.

Median gross annual pay

£27,006

April 2025

Mean gross annual pay

£27,747

April 2025

Pay distribution for Administrative occupations: salary in the UK: half earn between £18,892 and £34,516The coloured band runs from the 25th percentile (£18,892) to the 75th percentile (£34,516). The thick line is the median, £27,006. The dot is the mean, £27,747.£0£10,000£20,000£30,000£40,000p25p75mediana £27,006
Own chart, built from the published ONS ASHE figures for this page.

Como ler este número

How to read this figure

Median gross annual pay is a statistic for a whole group of people doing administrative occupations: salary in the uk, not a quote for any one job offer. Because it is a median, half of that group earns more and half earns less.

De onde vem o dado

Source: ONS, Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE), Table 14 (occupation by four-digit SOC 2020, UK), 2025 provisional

Reference period: April 2025. Data collected on: 7 October 2026.

Cuidado

What this number does not tell you

This number does not know your employer, your experience or your location — all of which move real pay more than the national average does. Treat administrative occupations: salary in the uk here as a starting point for negotiation, not a ceiling or a floor.

O que fazer com isso

What to do with this figure

Check the official source below for the full methodology, then compare this figure with job adverts for administrative occupations: salary in the uk in your own region before relying on it.

How much this occupation pays

Across the United Kingdom the median gross annual pay for administrative occupations (Standard Occupational Classification 41) was £27,006 in April 2025. The median is the middle salary: half of these employees earned less and half earned more. The mean of £27,747 is pulled up by the highest earners, which is why the two figures differ.

For comparison, the median for all employees in the UK was £32,890. These figures cover employees on adult rates who had been in the same job for more than a year, so they exclude the pay of people who changed job during the year.

MeasureValue
Median gross annual pay£27,006
Mean gross annual pay£27,747
Median gross weekly pay£534 a week
Median gross hourly pay£15.53 an hour
Median for full-time employees£30,787
Median for part-time employees£14,565
Employee jobs in the survey base (thousands)2,134

The pay range, from the lowest to the highest paid

ASHE publishes percentiles, which show the whole spread rather than a single average. The 10th percentile is the level that only the lowest paid tenth earn below; the 90th percentile is what the best paid tenth earn above.

Gross annual pay distribution, Administrative occupations

PercentileGross annual pay
10th percentile (lowest paid tenth)£10,961
25th percentile£18,892
Median (50th percentile)£27,006
75th percentile£34,516
90th percentile (highest paid tenth)£44,138

Men and women in this occupation

The median for men was £30,955 and for women £25,440. This is an unadjusted comparison: it does not control for hours worked, seniority or part-time working, so it is not a measure of unequal pay for the same work.

How reliable this figure is

Coefficient of variation 0.5% — ONS considers this estimate precise.

How does administrative occupations: salary in the uk compare with the rest of the United Kingdom?

At £27,006, administrative occupations: salary in the uk is close to the £32,890 that average salary in the uk publishes for the United Kingdom as a whole — a difference of 18%. That gap is the first thing worth checking before comparing two job offers.

Why does pay for administrative occupations: salary in the uk vary so much?

A quarter of people in this group are paid below £18,892 and a quarter above £34,516; the median sits at £27,006 and the mean at £27,747. The gap between the two ends is wide, which usually means experience, location or employer size separates the lowest and highest earners by more than the job title alone.

What does "April 2025" mean for administrative occupations: salary in the uk?

The figures for administrative occupations: salary in the uk come from ONS, Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE), Table 14 (occupation by four-digit SOC 2020, UK), 2025 provisional, with a reference period of April 2025. Pay statistics like this one are not updated in real time: the underlying survey or register takes months to collect and process, so the number reflects pay around that date, not today. Released 2025-10-22, last revised 2025-12-19. Estimates marked by ONS as having a coefficient of variation above 20% are suppressed and shown here as unavailable.

Glossário: os termos desta página

Median vs. mean

The median is the middle value when every salary is lined up from lowest to highest: half earn less, half earn more. The mean is the simple average. A handful of very high salaries pulls the mean up without moving the median, so the median is usually the better guide to what a typical person earns.

Ver no glossário completo

Percentile

A percentile splits the distribution into 100 equal parts. The 10th percentile is the value only a tenth of people earn below; the 90th percentile is what only a tenth earn above. Looking at several percentiles shows the full spread, not just one average.

Fonte: Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) — Office for National Statistics.

Ver no glossário completo

Full-time equivalent

A way of converting part-time hours into the pay a full-time version of the same job would earn, so that a two-day-a-week role can be compared fairly with a five-day one. Figures that mix full-time and part-time workers without adjusting for this tend to understate typical full-time pay.

Ver no glossário completo

Coefficient of variation

A measure of how much an estimate could be off, expressed as a percentage of the estimate itself. Statistical agencies use it to flag figures based on too small a sample: a high coefficient of variation means the number should be read as a rough order of magnitude, not an exact figure.

Fonte: Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) — Office for National Statistics.

Ver no glossário completo

Reference period

The point in time, or the stretch of time, that a published figure actually describes. Pay surveys take months to collect and process, so the reference period is usually well before the date the figures are released, and always before the date you are reading them.

Ver no glossário completo

Occupational classification

A standard code that groups similar jobs so that pay statistics can be compared across employers and over time — the UK uses SOC, Canada uses NOC, the United States uses SOC as well, and the European Union uses ISCO. The same job title can sit in different codes depending on the classification used.

Fonte: Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) — U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Ver no glossário completo

Pay statistics glossary — todos os 10 termos.

Source: ONS, Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE), Table 14 (occupation by four-digit SOC 2020, UK), 2025 provisional

Licence: Open Government Licence v3.0. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

Reference period: April 2025

Data collected on: 7 October 2026

Released 2025-10-22, last revised 2025-12-19. Estimates marked by ONS as having a coefficient of variation above 20% are suppressed and shown here as unavailable.

Figures are statistical averages for a whole group of employees. Your own pay depends on your employer, your experience, your hours and where you work.

Related pages