Hairdressing, beauty treatment and other personal services see highest employment sector pay increase

• Companies providing personal services – including physical wellbeing and funeral activities – have seen a 34% increase in wages compared to 2014
• Despite this, these workers in the sector are still among the lowest-paid in the UK, with an average wage of £1,461 per month
• The UK’s highest average wage is in mining and quarrying, which has seen the lowest wage increase, rising 10% in past seven years
• Overall, UK employees have seen an average wage increase of 23.8%

Service activities such as dry cleaning, beauty treatment, physical well-being activities and funeral services are the UK industry which has received the highest increase in average wage over the past seven years, a new study shows.

Comparing ONS average wage figures from July 2014 with those from July of this year, research from advertising experts N.Rich reveals that the average salary for those working in personal services has gone up by 34.8% – the highest increase across industries in the UK. Overall, this sector’s monthly pay packet of £1,084 per month in July 2014 has increased to £1,461 in July of this year.

Agriculture, forestry and fishing has seen the second highest average wage increase, going up by 33.7%. The industry’s average has gone from £1,349 in 2014, to £1,803 in 2021 – a growth of £454.

Administrative and support services also saw a fair increase in wages on figures from July 2014, at 32.5%. This is the UK’s third highest percentage increase, which in real terms is an increase of £419 from an average wage of £1,349 per month in 2014 to £1,803 this year.

At the other end of the spectrum, employees within construction, social security and mining/quarrying industries were among those with the lowest wage growth – with all three sectors seeing a wage increase barely exceeding 10%

UK industry average wage increase, ranked by percentage

Assessing raw monetary values, roles within finance and insurance saw the biggest leap in average wage, with a £760 increase from July 2014 to this year. Extraterritorial businesses – those that operate on a global scale – saw the second highest raw increase, at £707, while employees within Information and Communications roles have received an average raise of £610 since 2014.

Despite seeing one of the lowest raw financial increases from 2014’s figures, employees within accommodation and food services appear on the higher end of the scale in terms of the overall percentage increase. The rise in average wage from £860 per month to £1,078 (a total of £218) equates to a percentage increase of 25.3%. Construction and the sector of households work – working for households that produce goods for their own subsistence – saw raw financial increases of £208 and £147 respectively, the two lowest increases of all the sectors.