Scotland V England - The Pay League

Typical hourly pay in Scotland has crept above that in England for the first time since records began.

As recently as 2004, typical hourly pay in Scotland was 7.2 per cent lower than in England, the study says. But strong wage growth in the mid-2000s reduced the gap to just 2.9 per cent by 2009, when the repercussions of the crash began to be felt throughout the British economy. In the years following the financial crisis, Scotland experienced sharp falls in employment, but people still in work saw their pay packets squeezed less than those in England. Typical (median) pay in Scotland is now £11.92 an hour, marginally higher than the £11.84 earned in England, the analysis concludes. Earnings growth in Scotland has also been stronger than in England across all pay levels, other than for those at the very top.

A greater trade-union presence, more public-sector employment and lower migration rates – meaning less competition for jobs – all benefited Scotland in the years before the crash. When the 2008 crisis came, Conor D’Arcy, policy analyst at the Resolution Foundation, explained  the country also experienced a more “traditional recession” than England, with unemployment rising steeply but pay levels not taking as big a hit as they did south of the border.

However, around one in five workers in Scotland still earns below the low-pay threshold. A Holyrood committee highlighted a concerning decline in “job quality” in recent years, with an increase in low-paid, zero-hours contracts since the recession. It said poor-quality jobs were having an adverse impact on health.