average wage misleading?

tir21

If the average wake is 24k does that include people earning 150k plus because it wouldn't take many with that pay to scew the results.

If out of 5 people one earns 60k and the other 4 earn 10k then the average wage is 20k even though 80% of the sample are on half the average wage

Is there any way of finding what the average pay is for the bottom 90% or bottom 50%?

AP007

These things are better

http://career-advice.monster.co.uk/salary-benefits/pay-salary-advice/uk-average-salary-graphs/article.aspx


But its maybe better to see what the average salary is in the job you do and industry etc

RobTang

There are various sources that have income distribution charts.
HRMS produces reports how many tax payers in each band, the IFS has similar data as well.


whether you trust this information is a different question


You could just take their stats and work it out, bare in mind that 50k is top of the 90th percentile and 150k is within the top 1-2% and the sample sizes are in the millions; so I don't think the distortions will be as big as you think.

jacques_chirac

You also need to take into account regional variations - £60,000 would be a relatively common salary in London, but this is offset by the high cost of living.

marybelle01

Jacques Chirac is correct - regional variations are crucial, and "averages" over an entire country, whatever country, are meaningless. You should also be looking for median wage levels, not averages, as median figures take into account the skewing caused by what you have described here.

brendon

You can find the distribution of income on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_in_the_United_Kingdom#Percentile_points_for_income_of_individuals_before_tax

Average pay is £29,900 per person. 50% of people make £21,300+. 90% of people make £11,070, and the top 10% make £50,500+.

marybelle01

The median wage figures, including regional variations, can be found here http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/ashe/annual-survey-of-hours-and-earnings/2013-provisional-results/stb-ashe-statistical-bulletin-2013.html

pleasedelete

But even that is misleading. There is a massive difference between the 95% at 68K and the 99% at £156k.

getmore4less

its the millions on benefits that skew the averages up(income) not the few on high wages.

much like wealth includes worthless stuff like art

princeofpounds

As stated above, when you have large outliers you should use median averages rather than mean. Most sensible sources of statistics on average wages do this.