Do you earn more or less than the rest of the UK?

InsideInsurance

tir21 wrote: »

Which gives the biggest number

Average or median?

It can be either. Average normally means the mean average number so you add them all up, divide by the count of numbers and you get the mean average.

For median average you write all the numbers in order and pick the middle one. If its an even number of numbers then you take the mean average of the middle two.

The "advantage" of median is that your results are not as skewed by the extreme values, in this case main the people who earn £200m+ a year that can significantly increase the numbers in a small local authority. So with Adur with just under 60,000 people that one persons salary increases the annual average by £3,333 under mean but under median it moves it just one place to the right and will make pennies difference

The headlines say it is based on where the people work and not where they live. I am curious to how they have identified the place of work for people, particularly for the likes of the City of London where clearly very few people who work there live anywhere close by.

Hedgehog99

tir21 wrote: »

Which gives the biggest number

Average or median?

Three types of average: mean, median & mode.

For things like this, the mode would be good because it's the number that occurs the most, e.g. you could have lots of people on 16k, some on 10k, a few on 6k and several on 100k. If you used the mean, the 100k could skew it so we all looked like we were getting more than we are.

agrinnall

I earn more than the average in the area where I live but less than the average for the area where my nominal workplace is. What I'm interested to know is why salaries in Copeland (a LA I've never even heard of) are so high, is it because of Sellafield?

gingerdad

Its interesting if you look at Copeland (the red in north west) how one very large empolyer can squew (?) the figures...

as its one of the poorest areas in the country but with one of the highest average salaries for people working in the district (very few of these live in Copeland)

the employer?

Sellafield

gingerdad

agrinnall wrote: »

I earn more than the average in the area where I live but less than the average for the area where my nominal workplace is. What I'm interested to know is why salaries in Copeland (a LA I've never even heard of) are so high, is it because of Sellafield?

cross posted but yes its sellafield - very few of the workers at sellafield live in copeland, but its amazing how many times the district comes up as the best place to live, as housing costs very low

[Deleted User]

These things are always rubbish because they ignore peoples assets and don't include self-employed (who often use accountants to skew their income to reduce tax)

Ebe_Scrooge

Mean average is often misleading, because extreme values skew the average.

For example, most people have 2 legs. Some people have 1 or no legs. So if you have 2 legs, you have "more than the average number of legs", since the mean average would be something like 1.9999 legs. This is why median or mode is often more representative.

killick_becki

Should note that Copeland doesn't only include Sellafield but also includes BAE systems that also pays a decent wage.

quidsy

I earn more than City of London Average but still slightly less than men according to that sheet. Off to see the boss about a pay rise.

szam_

Above median average, which is a surprise actually.