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Teaching wage differentials
10th March 2008
I am teaching the economics of wage and earnings differentials to my students this morning and I wanted to have an up to date set of information on the gap between high and relatively low paid jobs. The ONS Annual Survey of Earnings and Hours is a good reference point. All of the data is available for download in excel spreadsheets if you want your students to do some independent research and then select occupations with different earnings levels. Here is the link
I selected a number of occupations and tried to get a spread of earnings - the data below is for mean weekly gross earnings (we will discuss the difference between mean and median in class). But the selection proved useful in generating discussion about the economic and social factors behind persistent wage and earnings differentials. Here is my selection
Weekly pay - Gross (£) - For all employee jobs: United Kingdom, data is for 2007
Directors and chief executives of major organisations 2,370
Corporate Managers And Senior Officials 1,787
Aircraft pilots and flight engineers 1,257
GPs 1222
Police officers (inspectors and above) 1,093
Brokers 1,251
Air Traffic Controllers 1,003
Vets 669
Paramedics 634
Secondary education teachers 594
Crane Drivers 576
Midwives 495
Printers 488
Bricklayers and masons 455
Sheet metal workers 414
Librarians 403
Bus and coach drivers 395
Pest control officers 378
Butchers, meat cutters 340
Hospital porters 312
Debt collectors 289
Call centre agents/operators 266
Nursery nurses 232
Hairdressers And Related Occupations 206
Shelf fillers 197
Bar staff 138
Geoff Riley
Geoff Riley FRSA has been teaching Economics for over thirty years. He has over twenty years experience as Head of Economics at leading schools. He writes extensively and is a contributor and presenter on CPD conferences in the UK and overseas.