pay ri
Median pay increases remained at 3% in the three months to September – unchanged for the third consecutive quarter – according to the latest monitoring figures from Incomes Data Research (IDR).
However, and slightly more positively given the broadly stagnant backdrop, for private sector pay the proportion of pay rises worth 4% or more almost doubled, with 23% of increases occurring at this level, up from 12% last month, said IDR.
As a result, upper quartile pay rose from 3.2% in the three months to August to 3.7% in this latest period.
This shift was also influenced by better pay award outcomes in manufacturing, where the median rose from 3.1% to 3.8%.
Upper-quartile pay awards in manufacturing were also up (from 3.8% to 4.3%) because of more than two-fifths (44%) of awards in this sector being worth at least 4%.
Such higher pay awards were common in energy and water and among engineering firms. In private services, by contrast, the picture was unchanged, said IDR.
Awards in the public sector were running at 4%, so tracking above the private sector for this period, as indeed they have done throughout 2025, said IDR. This was because of the number of higher-level rises worth 4% or more that have been agreed for thousands of public sector workers this year, the research agency pointed out.
Zoe Woolacott from IDR, said: “The differing outcomes in the private and public sectors suggest the public sector is currently in the ‘catching-up’ phase, after a lengthy period in which pay awards lagged behind those in the private sector.”
