The combined value of bonus payments made in Great Britain in the financial year ending March 2016 reached £44.3 billion, 4.4% higher than the previous year, according to research by the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
Its Average weekly earnings, bonus payments in Great Britain: financial year ending 2016 report, also found that bonuses as a percentage of total pay were 6% between April 2015 and March 2016.
Bonuses as a percentage of total pay were 22.7% in the financial and insurance activities industry. This compares to 23.1% of total pay in the financial year ending 2015.
In the financial year ending 2016, bonuses contributed 7.3% of total pay in the private sector, and 0.5% in the public sector. Excluding financial services, bonuses in the public sector contributed 0.3% of total pay.
Total bonus payments in the private sector increased by 4.8% to £43.7 billion in the financial year ending 2016.
In the financial and insurance activities industry, total bonus payments rose by 2.2% in April 2015-March 2016 to hit £13.9 billion. For the rest of the economy, payments increased by 5.4% to reach £30.4 billion.
The average bonus per employee at a general economy level for the 2016 financial year reached almost £1,600, which is an increase of 2.4%.
Private sector employees received just over £1,900 in bonuses between April 2015 and March 2016, and public sector staff took home just over £100.
The average bonus payment for employees in the financial and insurance activities sector reached £13,400 in the financial year ending March 2016, an increase of £300 from last year. Mining and quarrying employees had an average bonus of £7,200, and health and social work staff faced figures near zero.
Just over half (53.3%) of all bonus payments were made during the bonus season, which typically runs between December and March each year, with 72.3% of total bonuses paid in the financial and insurance activities sector delivered in this period.