Hull has a lower median annual wage than the UK.

The median annual wage of all full-time workers in Hull was £30,966, the lowest figure in Humberside. This works out at a £609 median weekly wage, according to Office for National Statistics (ONS) data, published in November 2023..

Last year, the UK's median annual full-time wage rose by 5.8 per cent, to £34,963. The median weekly salary climbed by 6.2 per cent, to £681. But there are regional disparities. None of Hull, East Riding or North Lincolnshire local authority areas has a higher median salary than the UK's figures.

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The median is the middle number/s of a data set, and not all divided to calculate the average. It can be more instructive, particularly when especially high or low figures skew an average. In North Lincolnshire, the median annual salary of full-time workers is £32,280, £656 a week. In East Riding, it is £31,342 a year, with an almost £7,000 gender pay gap between the median salary of a woman and a man. Hull's gender pay gap is just over £4,000.

Discounting the City of London banking district, workers living in the London borough of Tower Hamlets earn the most money. The median annual pay in Tower Hamlets is £61,984. In Oadby and Wigston, Leicestershire, workers take home a median wage of just £24,337 annually, or £470 per week, the lowest in the UK.

The median annual wage ONS data comes from the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings, based on a one per cent sample of full-time jobs taken from HM Revenue and Customs’ Pay As You Earn (PAYE) records.

TUC's analysis, based on the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings, from 1997 to 2023, has found that median wages are worth less now than they were in 2008 in 212 out of 340 UK local authorities.

TUC General Secretary Liz Blackshaw: "Our next government must invest in UK industry to get our economy growing again. And we need a new deal for working people, to deliver better pay and more secure jobs. When working people get a fair share of the wealth they create, they spend more in local businesses and services, benefitting the whole community."

Going into the general election, the Labour Party committed to change the Low Pay Commission’s remit, the body that guides changes in the minimum wage. As well as median wages and economic conditions, Labour want the minimum wage for the first time to reflect the need for pay to take into account the cost of living.

The Conservatives did not have plans to change the framework within which the minimum wage is set, but committed to keeping the national living wage in each year of the next parliament at two-thirds of median earnings. The Greens wanted a £15-an-hour minimum wage, regardless of age.

The Liberal Democrats campaigned to scrap the lower apprentice minimum wage and align sick pay with the minimum wage. UK sick pay rates are notoriously less generous compared to international comparisons. Reform UK, meanwhile, made a flagship pledge to raise the personal allowance before having to pay income tax to £20,000, from £12,500.