The uneven pay recovery

Pay is beating prices — but not evenly

Across three very different places, pay is now outrunning inflation — but the size of the gain diverges. In Barrow-in-Furness, median pay reached £2,779, up +8.6% on the year — a real-terms gain of +5.4%, the strongest of the three.

Oxford, a far larger labour market with 74,022 on payroll, saw a more measured +5.8% — median pay of £2,931 and a real gain of +2.7%.

The jobs behind the pay

Dundee sits between them: median pay of £2,530, up +6.5% for a real gain of +3.4%. All three beat inflation in 2026 — but in 2 of the 3, employment is lower than a year ago, a reminder that a rising pay packet and a shrinking payroll can move together.