Private sector salary increase expectations

In the private sector 10% increases are pretty much unheard of unless a change in role...let alone when we're on the brink of recession....i'd reset the expectation at around 3-6%.

I am expecting the same 2-3% I have got for the last 20 years. I may be surprised though I guess.

My union has already told the company to go away and think long and hard after their initial offer for 2023.
We've just come out of a three year deal with ~2% annually, and some optional contract changes that could net you up to 15% plus some extras (holiday, pension).

So i suspect they've offered some "normal" amount of ~3% based on official inflation/cost of living figures, and promptly been told to try again, or maybe been laughed at.

Company is also making money hand over fist and is (i think) the most profitable it's ever been.

I blanket increased everyone here by 5% irrespective of their normal date for review before the inflation started to really hit the fan on the basis that they could all get a boost now, but don't come asking again if it gets worse for a while as obviously revenues will fall and costs will rise making more unachievable. Seemed to be well received. All those things of course came true but we've had a while to adjust to our new cost base as have the staff.

I guess it should be based on what your competitors are prepared to pay ? I used to work in an industry where we had a mass exodus of engineers. When they started asking why it was just a competitor was offering considerably more hourly rate. We knew they couldn't sustain that rate but it lost us alot of highly skilled engineers !

The public sector (well NHS) is loosing and not attracting people at the minute as pay is so in favour of the private sector.

My union has already told the company to go away and think long and hard after their initial offer for 2023.
We’ve just come out of a three year deal with ~2% annually, and some optional contract changes that could net you up to 15% plus some extras (holiday, pension).

So i suspect they’ve offered some “normal” amount of ~3% based on official inflation/cost of living figures, and promptly been told to try again, or maybe been laughed at.

Company is also making money hand over fist and is (i think) the most profitable it’s ever been.

Do we have the same employer? More Together and all that...

I got 10% in Jan just gone, but that’s more a reflection on how low the salary was to begin with, and they were worried I might leave.
They were right to be worried, just weren’t worried enough. I start with a new company in a couple of weeks, but same role, 10% increase in salary, plus a decent commission on top.

In my industry salary expecations are becoming eye-watering – whereas graduates were expecting £18-£23k two years ago, they are expecting £28-£32k now (digital industry). We had one person (mid-weight engineer) turn down an offer of £48k as he said he 'needed £58k a year to survive'. I have no idea if he has got a job yet but I wouldn't be surprised if he has.

We're just about to increase our prices across the board by 10% – the second time we have had to do it in 12 months after keeping the same rates for 5+ years before that.

we're still in discussion, part of the workforce is union and the union negotiates on everyone's behalf. Normally rises are effective April, it's now Sept although everyone got a one-off payment a month or so ago against what will eventually be owed in back pay to help out.

We have PRP and depending on your EoY review that dictates the increment you get; part of the renegotiation is actually the membership asked for the union to negotiate a lower increase* but put in place underpins. That way the lower paid (ie more junior) will see more on a % basis which seems fair to me, in the end absolute £ pays bills, not %

TLDR; somewhere between 4 and 5% but the underpins means that lower zone workers (technicians, administrators, etc.) will be seeing more like 7-10% depending on their EoY rating.

* in fairness, they asked for a higher increment AND underpins but equally accepted there is a finite pot for increases against a backdrop of being a large energy user, etc. so I'm actually reasonably 'proud' if the union membership agrees to a settlement that says 'actually, give us a bit less so you can give a bit more to those that need it most'

A few of the whingers at work keep bleating on about the cost of living & how unfair it is that we haven't been given a 10% pay rise.
They don't seem to understand that this salary hike becomes baked in, once applied & becomes an extra cost forever more.

We normally have pay reviews around Jan time & normally get a few % if we get anything. Hopefully we'll get a bit more than that this year (the company is currently doing pretty well), but I won't be expecting it.

10% pay rise would be nice, but isn't going to happen.

Our last 3 years have been 2% 2020, 1% in 2021, 3% in 2022. Also noteworthy that the lowest pay bands got 5% this year instead of the 3% everyone else got. In IT and associated areas there's been a bit of an exodus recently, lots of teams are under staffed and I think that's more likely to drive a higher 2023 rise than the cost-of-living.

so U.K. private sector people – what are you expecting your salary to increase by in 2023 and has your company already announced it / discussed it internally?

I'm out now ... however

They were right to be worried, just weren’t worried enough. I start with a new company in a couple of weeks, but same role, 10% increase in salary, plus a decent commission on top.

My expectations for a long time were that you'd get as little as they could get away with and there is no point slogging yourself to death when another company that's doing the same to its workers will give you 10% more.

In the past many companies (my last one included) adapted by pre-emptively just getting rid of the bottom x% of performers every year (often with KPI's that the employee had no control over) and bringing in new inexperienced replacements or just not replacing. This was adapted to by even more churn...

I expect to see a mix of any and all of the above in the current high CoL/low unemployment.

In the private sector 10% increases are pretty much unheard of unless a change in role…

Our production staff had 10% across the board last year...

10% pay rise would be nice, but isn’t going to happen.

Yeah I think a lot of people (quite understandably) expect a pay rise so everything stays the same. Not understanding the price (in a general term not just ££) of that

I think it'll be tight at our place but we had a 10% bump earlier this year so is kinda keeping pace with inflation so far. its going to depend on how crazy things get over the next 12 months.

<unpopular opinion> - last time I expressed this I was accused of being condescending but I'll say it again.

Energy costs and knock on pricing has been artificially low for a while now. Interest rates likewise. People have had a lot of disposable income as a result. Rather than budget on the basis it wouldn't last for ever, I think many have spent all the spare - PCP's being an accident now waiting the happen as an example. Maybe expensive e-bikes too.....

There are for sure millions that weren't in that situation and weren't 'wasting' their excess because there wasn't any excess. I'm hugely concerned and sympathetic. There are however other millions that could have seen this coming, built a war chest or paid down mortgages and chose not to, and now are facing a crisis if they are still committed to what they spent (eg: PCP)

So this might be smug / condescending, but I'm not seeing the full impact of 10% inflation, because I know prices were too low before and used some of that to insulate against the coming storm.

What the otherjohnv said.

For many companies, awarding a pay rise matching inflation will translate to job losses next year - companies are dealing with inflation across all costs so reducing headcount is one of the few options to balance the books.

I’m self employed but held my 2021 rates for this year partly to ensure I’m not pricing myself out of the market.

Do we have the same employer? More Together and all that…

Unless you're in the automtive sector and living in Sweden, unlikely...

We had a total of 9% pot last year, having been 0% the year before (midway through covid). I expect we will be looking at 6-8% this year. Interestingly I work for a us company so our salaries in the UK have dropped by 15% on the dollar so far this year, so they don't really have an excuse about not being able to afford it over here..

I think it massively depends on the business.

Huge business making millions in profit, then go for what you can get.

Small business struggling to survive with ever rising bills, perhaps be more realistic in what they can afford.

Small business struggling to survive with ever rising bills, perhaps be more realistic in what they can afford.

However employees aren't going to accept that - we are a small-ish business (18 full time staff) and pay what we can and try to remain competitive but other larger businesses can afford to pay more than we can afford and our team aren't going to stick around for fun if they can get a decent increase to cover the rising cost of living.

Cost of living pay rises should be a set amount, never understood % as it just widens the gap, last time i looked petrol,milk food etc was the same price for the MD on 130k as it is for me on 25k...his hot tub and love of fine wine are choices.

So a company should say we can afford x amount divide by number of employees

There are however other millions that could have seen this coming, built a war chest or paid down mortgages and chose not to, and now are facing a crisis if they are still committed to what they spent (eg: PCP)

You could argue the same for employers though

<cries in public sector>

Also can the massive companies not just think we will accept lower profits for a while to help, raise wages but not raise prices, this would help a lot imo argued this with a mate whos company make 12m wage rises are gonna cost 900k so is 11.1m profit still not ok for a year or two.
This of course does nit take greed into account

Our place has given 5% to the lower paid roles and 3% to the higher paid roles, they have also increased the starting point of the salary scale which has meant some lower paid colleagues were getting 10-15%. Some better paid colleagues (but not exactly high earners) are not overly happy but I think it’s fair enough to try and help the colleagues at the lower end of things in these times if there is not enough money in the pot for everyone.

I've recently taken on a new contract in the Private Sector after almost working exclusively on Government stuff for the last 20 years. It was a significant rate hike over the current Public Sector day rate contract rates.

ill be honest ill just be happy to keep my job at the moment!

Nice to hear andy4d,

Im with theotherjon aswell, the huge houses bought over 35yr mortgage at low int rate was never going to work, what should have happened was buy the house you would have bought when rates where higher and thus be able to afford the inevitable increases, but people could not resist, same as all the 50-60k cars

Think we're just in for a tough couple of years, there are far too many parameters to work out whether companies can increase wages, whether the funds available are going to the right people to provide benefit and so on, we tend to be very one dimensional with our thinking, i.e. that those in the lower bands (under 20k) are on the breadline and need additional support, or those earning 50k are comfortable.

Personally for where we are now, i can't see a lot of companies adding fixed pay rises as high as 10%, one off bonus payments, or additional RRA or the likes might be more beneficial for the company, especially as we're seeing it across industries. Of course, there will be companies that can provide 10% pay rises, some already have, but small to medium businesses are going to struggle as always, and like previous times, we could see a workforce being reduced to give those left pay rises!

It is a horrible time though, this type of climate tends to be where the big get bigger and the small get subsumed, and we end up with less competition in the long run.

5% across the board, company wide at the end of 2021, then I've just had another surprise bump of just under 6%, plus I changed role in January and got roughly a 9.5% rise thanks to that promotion.

Most of our staff (a certain job level and below) also got a extra £750 cost of living payment this month too.

So yeah it's been a decent year for me in terms of pay increases, but definitely nowhere near a 10% annual rise.

The union has apparently been negotiating for ages, long enough for inflation to ramp up, prior to this we were typically seeing ~3% based on a performance reviewing formula that was ready for an overhaul itself.

Staff expectations are tricky to gauge talking to colleagues at the minute, I don't think anyone expects a single year 10%+ rise to match 2022 inflation. But it's got to exceed the previous ~3% average, simply for staff retention if nothing else. I reckon they'll land on some sort of three year deal in the 6-9% range with some sort of performance related thing 6% if you're basically doing your job more if you're excelling. the idea being inflation will settle by Q4 2024 and the nominal pay increase will seem generous at that point...

One big question is still hanging over back dating the increase to April, the longer the negotiation the bigger that initial lump will be...

My previous employer just did 2%, the odd bonus for nepotism, and a polite suggestion that you might want to polish up your CV if you felt you were worth more, which most of our team duly did...

My missus works for the local authority so I think she got 1.5% or something in ~2020(?), the first increase in years and then was promptly told Covid and COL means they shouldn't expect anything more this decade (paraphrased). Oh and they're going to downgrade her role... So I can't really complain.

There are however other millions that could have seen this coming, built a war chest or paid down mortgages and chose not to, and now are facing a crisis if they are still committed to what they spent (eg: PCP)

Im with theotherjon aswell, the huge houses bought over 35yr mortgage at low int rate was never going to work, what should have happened was buy the house you would have bought when rates where higher and thus be able to afford the inevitable increases

I'm sure that could be leveled at some people, but most people are in the opposite scenario, living in the house they can afford rather than the one they want. A 2 bedroom terraced new-ish build in the not-awfull bits of Reading is £325k-£385k (Earley, Woodley, Winnersh, Caversham, South of the M4). That's the first rung on the property ladder for those graduates, teachers, nurses etc. Not McMansions for nearing retirement GP's and MD's. Low 'costs' in other areas just drove competition for other resources (i.e. housing) up.

You're deluded if you think the poor-ish / working classes are responsible for this crisis. They're just fighting amongst themselves over an insufficient supply of housing.

As someone pointed out earlier, salary increases get baked in long term, not to mention bonuses tied to those salaries. My company (US based) had a very profitable year. They acknowledged the inflation and cost of living increases, but salary increases were pretty much inline with previous years (2% - 5%) however, bonuses were pushed up over 100% in many cases (depending on performance). Short term gains, but 10% seems high for any sector at the moment.

3% for us. Our vulture capitalist owners want all they can squeeze out of the company for themselves

Public sector here and it's been a decade of below actual inflation pay rises

I've just moved jobs to a better paid institute & seen a decent but necessary salary bump -probably the best paid research institute in the country, yet they are still struggling to recruit at every level.
Universities & research institutes across London are really in trouble, multiple crucial roles unfilled & no room for salary increases that people desperately need.

I've only been at my current place 7 months so not sure what rise they normally get but I do know they got a £1k increase across the board and a £750 COL payment in August, which I also got. There's talk of a 2% increase in January but that won't be enough for me, others have voiced the same opinion. If it's any less than 5% then I will have to look at moving which is a shame as the job itself is good with a decent group of people. No union involved to argue out case as it's a Japanese company which might be in our favour. I do know they struggle to retain and recruit (my job was available for over a year, unheard of for a driving position) so if I get my chance to put my view across that's something I can use.

I had lunch with our CEO yesterday (US engineering firm circa 60,000 people) and I raised this exact point. Last year the 'cost of living' increase was just under 3% on average. It's not actually termed a cost of living increase, it's merit based, decided locally against an overall budget. On average, most people got about 3% with adjustment for high and poor performance. We talked about expectations etc. and I think we both agreed that whilst nobody was seriously expecting 10%, there is an expectation that it will be higher than normal. However, the CEO did say that there would be a strong recommendation to skew the pay increase % to those at the lower end of the pay grade so that they receive a bigger increase % wise, recognising that for those at the higher end of the pay-scale (and I count myself lucky to say that includes me) the expectation is to suck it up. Annoying (personally), but I think fair overall. Also talked about giving some discretionary one off payments to help people cope with the current inflation pressures, presumably in a bid to alleviate long term unsustainable salary costs once inflation settles down.

We got 3% this year, plus £75pcm to help with fuel costs for the staff who can't WFH.

2.8%, after 3 years of no increases.

Lots of people jumping to jobs elsewhere to secure a reasonable bump in salary.

I'm expecting the typical ~3% nominal increase. Inflationary price increases this year are approx. 20% for direct vendor costs. Other operational expenses i.e. utilities/facilities will also be well up on 2020/21.

They've already announced a need to reduce overall op-ex by 5%; I can't see many CFO's signing off 10% pay rises in the private sector (except perhaps for the energy suppliers!!).

Public sector here and it’s been a decade of below actual inflation pay rises

I’ve just moved jobs to a better paid institute & seen a decent but necessary salary bump -probably the best paid research institute in the country, yet they are still struggling to recruit at every level.
Universities & research institutes across London are really in trouble, multiple crucial roles unfilled & no room for salary increases that people desperately need.

Across the whole country! Since 2012, cumulative inflation is around 27%, tuition fees have gone up by 2.8%. HE institutions are going to really start to struggle over the next 2 years or so.

Company has lost +500 million euros plus another 200million euros due to Russia - not sure there will be a pay rise! I will not complain as there are people in the Ukraine in a far worse position than worrying about if they get a pay rise this year.

I think I had just over 2% last year, I'm expecting it to be around 5% this year (due to be announced shortly) with senior management keeping an eye on what affect that has on the employee attrition rate. They may also offer a one-off payment in the short-term.

Historically we've had a low employee attrition rate and I think 5% + a one-off payment would be enough to maintain that but I can see a few of the experienced people (with high-level clearance) jumping into contracting as there's a lot of demand at the moment and they know they would likely get re-employed by the company if they wanted to return in 6-12 months (given it takes about 9 months currently to get someone cleared we can't afford to be particularly choosy about not wanting to re-employ people :p )

Energy costs and knock on pricing has been artificially low for a while now. Interest rates likewise. People have had a lot of disposable income as a result

I have some sympathy for your position, especially when it’s higher rate tax payers etc telling me they are feeling the pinch, but people at the bottom of the wage ladder often are not living extravagantly to start with.  If you are renting a two bed flat for you and your kids and paying electric on prepayment meter you don’t get a lot of choices about where you could save money, now or historically.  It’s easy for middle aged affluent people to criticise those who have different lived experiences.

We got 1% this year. I'm expecting similar for next year.

@poly (TINAS too) exactly, hence why I am trying my hardest not to be critical of those where there was no choice - in fact in the very next paragraph I said

There are for sure millions that weren’t in that situation and weren’t ‘wasting’ their excess because there wasn’t any excess. I’m hugely concerned and sympathetic. There are however other millions that could have seen this coming, built a war chest or paid down mortgages and chose not to, and now are facing a crisis if they are still committed to what they spent (eg: PCP)

@TINAS - yes, house price costs in some areas blow choice out of the water, it's no choice (with renting being just as expensive) But to counter, my wife's friend for example. Good dual income but not unconscionably rich. On the back of low prices/inflation/interest rates went for an extension and luxury kitchen. Now struggling to afford the increased mortgage as well as other living costs going up massively. Is it condescending to be sympathetic but also wonder if they really thought it through..... didn't have to upgrade at all, could have gone for lower cost alternatives, etc.

We got a 'local market adjustment' of about 3% in the summer which is corporate speak for people are leaving and they're citeing better pay elsewhere. That's in spite of me only joining in June having pointed out in salary negotiations that their offer was 10-15% lower than published data for the industry so it's not surprising. But I had my own reasons for wanting this job (nearly zero commute).

My expectation would be for a decent increase in January too because they're still hemorrhaging staff which is the real driver, not altruism. Most of our work is cost+, so as long as we're winning work the company is making money (actually more money as the contracts are costs + a percentage).

Private sector. 2.5-3% this year.

Fair bit of whinging that this was effectively a pay cut due to inflation. One thing that the company pointed out (rightly or wrongly) was that nobody compared pay rises to inflation when inflation was in 0-2% range.

I'm a liberal/leftie but do admit I get mixed feelings when public sectors go on strike due to sub-inflation rises. It's as though they think 2-3% is not what the vast majority of the private sector have had this year!

In a similar position to previous poster, our raises aren't really driven by inflation but by a competitive talent pool and behind the market salaries. Over the last few years I've had 9% a couple of times from a mixture of promotion and catching up to the market, but 0% twice due to covid. We've found it incredibly difficult to recruit equivalent skills to mine so I know I could get a good bump by moving but would take a hit on work-life flexibility.

Edit - dual income no kids means we should be ok to survive cost of living increases, but we're finding it incredibly hard to buy our first house as the market is still supercharged with most places going more than 10% over. Of course Truss is looking to make that even worse with stamp duty cuts

Somehow recently fluked my way in to a significant uplift by changing companies (despite giving the new company an opportunity to revise downwards as I was concerned by the expectations attached to their offer. Concerns that have since been vindicated 😖). Very high demand for engineers in our industry right now

That said, certainly not expecting a rise and am trying to pay off modest credit card debt etc. before I get found out or jump ship of my own volition. I don't know how many others are in a position where they would gladly take a pay cut just for a slightly more manageable work/life split. Am even think of applying for less senior roles with other companies 🙄

I’m a liberal/leftie but do admit I get mixed feelings when public sectors go on strike due to sub-inflation rises. It’s as though they think 2-3% is not what the vast majority of the private sector have had this year!

It's all us greedy nurses, we've been raking it in for the past 12 years whilst the private sector got nothing

Oh wait.....

https://www.nuffieldtrust.org.uk/resource/chart-of-the-week-real-terms-nhs-staff-pay-from-2010-to-2020

It’s all us greedy nurses

should have saved up some claps...

I didn't think the private sector gave pay rises, the government seem to say this so they can't justify public sector pay increases as it would not be fair to the private sector.

Seems they lied about that along with everything else!

According to the ONS

March to May 2022

Average total pay growth for the private sector was 7.2% in March to May 2022, and for the public sector it was 1.5%.

The finance and business services sector and construction sector showed the largest growth rates at 8.2% and 8.1%, respectively, partly because of strong bonus payments.

April to June 2022

Average total pay growth for the private sector was 5.9% in April to June 2022, and 1.8% for the public sector.

The wholesaling, retailing, hotels and restaurants sector saw the largest growth rate at 7.7%, followed by the finance and business services sector and construction sector, both at 6.3%; this was partly because of strong bonus payments.

Bonus payments are continuing at the high levels seen over the last six months, after a slightly lower level in May 2022.

It won't apply to many on here, but as an employer of a low wage single part-time employee. I'm offering a 9% payrise this year rather than what I'd normally offer at around 3-4.5%. Myself and my wife will be staying on the same pay - Im basing this on keeping our employee ahead of the recognised national living wage (Prediction of £10.90) rather than looking at inflation figures.

Its a minimum wage position, and all the major competition (supermarkets) would be paying significantly less for a similar role - it's one way of keeping good job retention figures I guess.

The wage packet increase is the least of my buisness worries and comparatively small when compared to utilities and stock/material increases.

Im with theotherjon aswell, the huge houses bought over 35yr mortgage at low int rate was never going to work, what should have happened was buy the house you would have bought when rates where higher and thus be able to afford the inevitable increases, but people could not resist, same as all the 50-60k cars

That describes a certain section of society that have been living beyond their means one way or another for a long time but remember the ones at the bottom who barely qualified for a mortgage (if at all) but are still better off than renting.

It's worth pointing out that folk have been predicting this for years on here. Still nowhere near historically bad levels on interest rates but that's only part of the picture.

I’m a liberal/leftie but do admit I get mixed feelings when public sectors go on strike due to sub-inflation rises. It’s as though they think 2-3% is not what the vast majority of the private sector have had this year!

See also: race to the bottom.

Folks are aware of the ‘great resign’?

Private sector is unlikely to make broad changes that keep pace with inflation at 10-20%. They failed to do so generally when inflation was <5%.

They managed to trade off workforce attrition and low pay awards then. Why change now?

I’d expect <5% as typical awards.

Aware that market competition means that moving to another company would provide a substantive increase.

An early September issue of The Economist had some things to say about wages, inflation, and woeful British productivity.

telecoms, 2% for 2023, after 3% this year and 1% last two years..
no one is happy, i believe the company is happy to churn staff.

recent costofliving one off payment announced £1450 for those on under £35k appears to be the becnhmarked standard.

seems a p1sstake when ebitda was £55k per employee in the last quarter, £207k FY21

In my industry salary expecations are becoming eye-watering – whereas graduates were expecting £18-£23k two years ago, they are expecting £28-£32k now (digital industry).

This seems a British problem?

if there is a workforce supply shortage then wages should rise to recruit people.

£28,000-£32,000 seems modest for in-demand graduates? I hope they’re voting with their feet if there are not substantial additional benefits like pension, car allowance, welcome bonus, and so on.

NHS band 5 salary (freshly minted radiographer and similar) is ~£27,000. https://www.healthcareers.nhs.uk/working-health/working-nhs/nhs-pay-and-benefits/agenda-change-pay-rates/agenda-change-pay-rates Not sure the NHS has been particularly competitive on salaries. I throw it in as i think it sets a low baseline for non-medical graduates.

It’s all us greedy nurses, we’ve been raking it in for the past 12 years whilst the private sector got nothing

😂

Ah yes. My SO was a senior doctor. Year on year 1% rises split into two 0.5% awards were a great incentive to go beyond the early retirement threshold - not. Of course then the first 5% rise turns up. Too little. Too late.

Didn't have an increase last year, but that's hardly suprising as our company was heavily impacted by all those energy suppliers going under and had to make some redundancies.

I'll see what I can negotiate this year.

I’m a liberal/leftie but do admit I get mixed feelings when public sectors go on strike due to sub-inflation rises. It’s as though they think 2-3% is not what the vast majority of the private sector have had this year!

It's not so much this year, it's on top of all the other years of sub-inflation rises! I just totted it up (I work at a uni). Since 2016, inflation averages 3.0%, our pay rises averaged 1.6%, and we've been below inflation for 6 consecutive years.

So it's not like people are suddenly kicking off about this year alone - it's been getting tougher for a long time.

I’m a liberal/leftie but do admit I get mixed feelings when public sectors go on strike due to sub-inflation rises. It’s as though they think 2-3% is not what the vast majority of the private sector have had this year!

I worked out that what I was being paid (for a senior management job admittedly) in 2002, was almost exactly what I was being offered for a similar role in 2021, once adjusted for inflation. Was in a lucky position of quitting and doing something else, but public sector pay has not kept up (and indeed has often been negative once inflation is accounted for) since around 2010.

My wife, who works 3 days a week, now earns so little that she doesnt pay tax or national insurance in a university role.

I worked out that what I was being paid (for a senior management job admittedly) in 2002, was almost exactly what I was being offered for a similar role in 2021, once adjusted for inflation.

is that not the definition of inflation..

is that not the definition of inflation..

Quite! I am being paid about 11% less now than I was in 2016, once adjusted for inflation.

(charity here)

We've not yet agreed our yearly increase. That's for the board to decide in October. Proposals vary from 3-10%.

We have however agreed a one-off cost of living contribution to all staff, with lowest paid recieving 20% more. This is an attempt to retain and look after staff, without a commitment to higher wages ongoing just yet.

Our FD is concerned that we don't announce high pay increases ahead of support from Government which is due to be announced.

We're also doubling down on the fact that we are a really, really good employer who's flexible, supportive and genuinely cares for stay. We are a really positive mission organisation to work for too.

My wife moved to a new company just less than a year ago. In the summer she was given a rise that was roughly 10% that she wasn't expecting. Speaking to others, they got the same. At her previous place the only way to get a raise would be to beg.

I'm public sector and have been offered 2%, following years of below inflation rises and plenty of 0%. We are balloting for strike action.

I’m expecting mine to go down by about 33%.

That’s because I was bought in to market, launch and sell a new product with year one based on MBO but thereafter in 2023 on 50/50 base + commission. Not easy finding sales as a new entrant to a mature market.

Just been given 5% across the board for everyone employed before 1st Sept 2022. Seems pretty reasonable to me, especially as our funding/income is quite complex.

My other half works for a building society. They got a 5% rise and moved to the top of their pay scales and a 1200 cost of living bonus.
Quite simply they couldn't recruit. Given she left the NHS after 28 years shes somewhat gob smacked at the level of 'uplift'

Public sector, ballotted for strike action. No such thing as a cost of living payment. If COSLA had said 5% in Jan (what they're offering now) we'd have bitten their hand off. But the game plan is always low ball it. it's not going to be a fun winter, expect a headline 10% but spread over 3years which will just put us further behind.

We paid 3% at Christmas and an intermediate rise of 5% in May.

We have budgeted another 5% at Christmas + a fund to head off any valuable people we feel are a flight risk with exceptional increases.

(Finance & asset management sector)

Moved roles in Jan, managed to get a 25% pay rise off that on the back of a 3% pay rise previous year. Current team is undergoing a Pay Review as the team is underpaid for what we do (compared to market average). We've lost one of the most senior members to another team due to pay and another starter who joined with me to another company to do the exact same role, 35% pay rise and the kick in the arse is that its the same company but a subsidiary...she'll be moving up a floor in our building.

Sticking around to see what comes of the pay review if anything. The team isn't hopefully, big ftse100 company that appears would rather lose staff than retain the knowledge base and pay a bit extra.

Company has thrown a bone to the staff with a cost of living payment in Oct, <=£30k and you'll get £1k, between £30k and £32,500 (£650) and under £35k (£300). Cant scoff at it but its one of the lowest in the sector.

It is not as simple as private vs. public.

Loads of factors that will drive it and I bet those averages include some thumping bonuses for senior execs in some industries where below 3% was the norm for lower paid staff.

Just a few things that might get considered...

- current attrition rate
- ability to pass on increases
- shortage of correctly skilled labour
- ability to pay based on other inflationary pressures
- management attitude / corporate culture
- market rate

Lots of UK businesses are going to be stretched beyond belief at current inflation and interest rates and even the best of intentions won't deliver big rises.

I've just put in a couple of speculative applications, see if i can get me a pay rise...

Got told today zero over 18mts huge USA corp.

Thanks for that

We’re all getting 4% from next month. I think that’s the biggest raise I’ve ever had! Most raises I can recall have been in the order of 2-3%, so 4%, especially at my age, is particularly welcome.

Massive recruitment problems and eye watering vacancy rates in the nhs but somehow declining salaries ( against inflation) are not the issue and increasing salaries is not the solution