Fact check: Wage claim confuses mean and median incomes from different years

Independent

13 hours ago

A widely shared claim on social media said that the median wage was £24,769 in 2008 and £29,600 by 2025. Meanwhile, the claim continued, inflation has increased prices by 70.51% since 2008, meaning that a £24,769 wage would have become £42,231 if it had kept up with inflation.
Evaluation
The claim does not have any sources attached to it, but it seems likely the post is comparing very different figures.
The person posting appears to have cited a figure for mean income – not median – from 2004/05 instead of 2008, with a median household income figure – not mean wage – from 2019 rather than 2025.
The facts
Where does the claim of a £24,769 median wage in 2008 come from?
The poster claimed that the median wage was £24,769 in 2008, without giving a source. It is not clear where this figure was obtained from.
It is possible that the user took this figure from a Wikipedia article which somewhat misleadingly cites a report from the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS).
The Wikipedia article correctly lists the £24,769 figure as the mean, rather than the median which the social media poster claimed. But the Wikipedia article also says that the figure is '2008 data'.
This is correct insofar as the IFS report was released in 2008. However, the Wikipedia article does not make it clear that the figure is actually from the 2004/05 fiscal year, not from 2008.
The mean is the average number in a data set, whereas the median is the middle value when the set is in numerical order.
The figures used by the IFS were taken from the 2004/05 survey of personal incomes (SPI) from HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC). In its report the IFS updated the figures to present them in the equivalent 2007/08 prices. Where does the claim of a £29,600 mean wage in 2025 come from?
The poster also claimed without a source that the median wage is £29,600 in 2025. Again it is not clear where this figure has been found.
The number matches the Office for National Statistics median household income figure for 2019, making that one potential source for the claim. However, median household income is not the same as median wage.
A Google search found that the number also matches an unsourced figure on a jobs website which claims that the 'average salary in the UK (2025)' is £29,600. However, apart from updating the year, this page has not been changed since 2020 when it also listed the 'average salary in the UK (2020)' as the same – £29,600.
Owing to the timing it is possible that this website has taken its 'average salary' figure from 2019's household income. The oldest archived version of the page is from April 9 2020, while the ONS's median household income figure was released just a month earlier on March 5.
What would the £24,769 income be worth in 2004/05?
The IFS's report does not appear to reveal its exact method for calculating the change in wage value between 2004/05 and 2007/08.
It simply cites 'authors' calculations based on SPI 2004–05'. That is a reference to the Survey of Personal Incomes (SPI) from that year which the PA news agency has been unable to find.
However, the report says that the basic tax allowance of £4,745 in 2004/05 would have been worth £5,140 in 2007/08 prices.
This suggests an increase in prices by approximately 8.32% which – allowing for rounding errors – appears close to the 8.45% change in Consumer Prices Index (CPI) between 2005 and 2008.
This would mean that an income worth £24,769 in 2007/08 prices would have been worth around £22,866 – again allowing for rounding errors – in 2004/05.
What would have happened if salaries had kept up with inflation since 2004/05?
Because the income stated is from 2004/05, not 2008 as claimed, the inflation rate since 2008 is not relevant.
Between 2005 and 2024 – the last full year for which data is available – prices increased by around 71.45% according to the CPI measurement. This implies that the mean income in 2004/05 (£22,866) would be around £39,202 in 2024 if it had kept up with inflation – again allowing for rounding errors.
If comparing CPI figures from March 2005 – the last month of the 2004/05 fiscal year – with the most recent CPI figure in June 2025, inflation has seen prices rise by 79.23%. That would mean the mean salary from 2004/05 would be around £40,981 had it kept up with inflation.
Median income in 2004/05 was £16,400. If that income had kept pace with price increases of 71.45% it would be worth £28,117. At the 79.23% inflation rate it would be worth £29,393.
What are mean and median incomes today?
According to HMRC data, median income before tax was £28,400 in 2023 – the latest year for which an SPI survey has been published. This figure is for individuals, not for households.
The mean income in the same year was £40,400.
What is the difference between median and mean?
Both median and mean are two different ways of measuring the average.
The mean is arrived at by adding every value together in a dataset and then dividing it by the number of entries in that dataset.
For instance, if calculating mean income, you add together the income of every person in the dataset, whether that be £20,000 per year or £200,000 per year, and then divide that figure by the number of people whose income you have measured.
The median is very different. To measure the median you line up all the values in a dataset in ascending order and choose the entry exactly in the middle. The benefit of this approach is that it cannot be skewed by a small number of really high earners at the top.
In a way it can be seen as the difference between calculating the average amount that people earn (mean) or calculating what the average person earns (median).
Gov.uk – Personal Income Statistics Tables 3.1 to 3.11, 3.16 and 3.17 for the tax year 2022 to 2023 (archived, see Table 3.1 and Table 3.2 for relevant data)