Teachers, doctors, nurses, police officers and civil servants are among the public sector workers set to receive below-inflation pay rises this year, with unions warning staff will quit as the cost of living crisis bites.
Guardian analysis of Office for National Statistics data shows that public sector earnings have fallen in real terms by 4.3% since the financial crisis, with some professions experiencing falls of as much as 13%.
In 2009, the median gross weekly earnings for public sector workers was £539 – or £695 when adjusted for inflation. This is the highest level recorded in the data since 1997.
In 2021, however, it had fallen to £664. This represents a decade of stagnating incomes for public sector workers.
Private sector median weekly earnings also decreased over this time, but by a smaller rate of 1.9%, from an inflation-adjusted £598 in 2009 to £586 in 2021.
The years 2014 and 2018 were the low points in public sector pay, when median earnings fell to £646 a week, the lowest level since 2003. The latest data shows it has barely increased from this level in 2021.
While average weekly earnings have fallen across the public sector, some public-facing jobs have faced larger cuts in real terms.
Police officers have seen a real-terms cut of 13% since 2009, from an inflation-adjusted £931 in 2009 to £809 in 2021, according to data from the ONS.
Prison Service officers and primary school professionals have also seen their earnings fall significantly in real terms, by 10.4% and 11.8% respectively.
Civil servants and train drivers enjoyed the largest pay increases of the 12 occupations analysed by the Guardian, with real-terms increases of 14.1% and 12.2% since 2009 respectively.
The biggest shock to the earnings of these public-facing jobs was after the financial crisis of 2008. Between 2010 and 2011, all 12 of the occupations analysed by the Guardian saw real-terms decreases in their median weekly pay. Care workers and civil servants were worst hit, with falls of 6.7%.
But this decline of earnings continued for several years for some of the occupations analysed. Nurses, for example, saw real-terms declines in weekly earnings for every year between 2010 and 2015. This helped contribute to a real-terms drop of 5.3% in their weekly pay since 2009.
In 2020 there were large shocks to the earnings of postal workers, Prison Service staff and train drivers, although some of these declines were accounted for in increases recorded in 2021.
