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Earnings

The Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) details average earnings of full-time adults in the UK countries and English regions and also in local areas within Wales. SPI data are provided only at a Wales level, local authority data are available from the HMRC website at the link below.

The median is the main average used to measure earnings because the distribution of earnings is skewed, with more people earning lower salaries than higher salaries. The mean is highly influenced by values at the upper end of the distribution and may not be representative of the average earnings of a typical person. The median avoids this issue by taking the middle value of the data after sorting in ascending order, and is consequently considered a better indicator of typical average earnings.