Highest Paying Jobs.co.uk

Britain's Top-Earning Careers Dashboard

Make better UK career decisions with real market pay signals

HighestPayingJobs helps you decide what to apply for, what to contract for, and where hiring demand is strongest right now.

Job seekers

Compare salary ranges by role before your next application.

Contractors

Track inside/outside IR35 day-rate movement week to week.

Recruiters and hiring teams

Benchmark compensation and demand pressure by sector and role.

Annual Highest Paying Jobs Rankings

Explore the most search-friendly yearly ranking pages for the most recent completed UK salary years.

Average UK Salary

This is the average advertised salary for all jobs listed in the UK in the 12 months to March 2026:

£40,069.15

Compared with the previous 12-month period (March 2024 to March 2025), this is an increase of £240.35. The average advertised UK salary in that earlier period was £39,828.80.

Inflation-Adjusted Average Advertised Salary (Real Terms)

To compare salary levels across time periods, we adjust for inflation. This converts advertised salary values into estimated real purchasing power using the latest available annual CPI rate for each period.

£38,826.70

February 2026: 3.2%

£38,407.71

February 2025: 3.7%

Deflating £40,069.15 by 3.2% gives an estimated real-terms value of £38,826.70, a purchasing-power gap of £1,242.45.

Compared with the inflation-adjusted value for the previous 12-month period, this is an increase of £418.98 in real terms.


We use the most recent consumer price inflation data provided by the Office for National Statistics.

UK Job Demand by Region

This is a combined view of number of advertised jobs and how much money those jobs paid between 1st March 2025 and 28th February 2026.

Areas where there are higher numbers of job listings, and higher advertised salaries show in the darkest green.

Total UK Jobs Listed by Month

Use this trend view to decide timing: where hiring momentum is accelerating, where it is slowing, and which sectors are worth prioritising next.


Last 12 Month Total UK Jobs

UK Advertised Jobs Count

The total number of advertised jobs in the UK between March 2025 and March 2026:

2,258,046

Job TypeTotal JobsPercentage of Jobs 🔽
Permanent2,191,77197.06 %
Contract (Inside IR35)46,7242.07 %
Contract (Outside IR35)19,5510.87 %
Contract (IR35 Not Specified)00.00 %

On average, there are 43,424 new UK Jobs posted each week, or 188,171 each month.

Job TypeWeekly JobsMonthly Jobs 🔽
Permanent42,149182,648
Contract1,2745,522

The busiest month for new permanent jobs in the UK is March, whilst the quietest month is June.

The busiest month for new contract jobs is January, and the quietest month is May.


Last 12 Month Permanent UK Jobs

Permanent Jobs

Latest month: March 2026

Jobs listed

316,635

Up 102.2% vs last year

Average salary

£44,195.00

Down 0.1% vs last year

Last 12 Month UK Contract Jobs

Inside IR35

Latest month: March 2026

Jobs listed

5,575

Up 57.1% vs last year

Average day rate

£520.00

Up 5.1% vs last year

Outside IR35

Latest month: March 2026

Jobs listed

2,242

Up 49.3% vs last year

Average day rate

£510.00

Up 1.0% vs last year


Last 12 Month Total Listed Jobs

Month 🔽Listed Jobsvs Prev Monthvs Prev 3 Monthsvs Prev 6 Monthsvs Prev Year
March 2026316,635
February 2026251,922
January 2026271,628
December 2025108,964
November 2025154,928
October 2025154,263
September 2025194,846
August 2025138,151
July 2025123,852
June 202591,914
May 2025105,135
April 2025130,766

Highest Paying Jobs By Sector

Compare sector-level pay benchmarks to focus your search, contract targets, or compensation planning on roles with stronger upside.

Open a sector to move from summary into role-level decisions with salary checker and weekly mover actions.


SectorTotal Perm JobsAverage Salary 🔽Jobs vs Prev 12MSalary vs Prev 12M
Managerial5,308£70,282.69+13.5%+4.3%
IT665,731£54,057.31+6.6%-2.0%
Finance41,559£51,799.62+86.5%-15.7%
Consulting96,416£50,813.46+17.4%-1.2%
Engineering197,848£49,287.69-2.2%-0.4%
Construction178,087£47,073.08+39.9%-0.6%
Public Sector2,530£45,652.31-26.9%+5.4%
Aviation1,692£45,464.62+65.1%+0.8%
Procurement6,499£44,995.77-2.8%-4.3%
Security and Emergency29,438£44,736.15+9.8%+6.2%
Design31,355£44,370.77+59.8%-1.7%
Accounting144,630£42,623.08+79.4%+0.5%
Media9,956£41,949.62-3.1%-2.8%
Healthcare123,263£41,546.54-14.5%+4.4%
Environmental28,607£41,239.62+93.5%+6.3%
Banking35,672£41,000.77+2.4%-9.4%
Sales37,985£40,739.23-4.3%+11.8%
Legal25,574£40,044.23+87.9%+12.9%
Science5,666£39,871.15-9.6%-3.8%
Recruitment103,170£39,648.85-0.6%-8.2%
Manufacturing10,229£39,436.15-1.5%-13.6%
Seasonal6,187£38,910.00+27.3%+16.1%
Marketing29,522£38,766.15+2.2%-5.2%
Logistics129,922£38,668.85+315.9%+2.8%
Education113,837£36,647.69-15.5%+1.2%
Travel881£35,923.08-12.8%+45.8%
Multilingual1,311£34,758.08+10.1%-0.4%
Hospitality32,917£34,631.54-5.5%+5.5%
Customer Services73,621£32,857.31+22.9%+6.0%
Retail18,499£32,717.69-8.0%+8.6%
Warehouse1,110£32,485.38+4.5%+5.0%
Cleaning2,709£32,230.77-0.7%+8.4%
E-commerce40£17,121.92+110.5%+70.3%