Full time men and women workers employed in jobs in Solihull earn an average of £31,049 a year in 2007. This figure is 104% of the UK average for full time workers of £29,999 a year and places it at the top of the West Midlands pay league. Full time men and women workers employed in jobs in Walsall earn an average of £23,552 a year in 2007. This figure is 79% of the UK average and places it at the bottom of the regional pay league.

 

The Region’s full time workforce earn an average of £26,557 which puts them seventh in the UK regional pay league earning 89% of the UK average of £29,999. The average is almost £5,000 less than the South East and £20,000 less than London. Solihull is the only place in the region where earnings are above the UK average.

 

In Walsall, Stoke on Trent and Sandwell average pay is just about 80% of the UK average. In Worcestershire, Staffordshire, Dudley and Shropshire average pay is below 85% of the UK average. The figures for all areas in the Region are shown here.

 

Average Gross Earnings for Full Time Men and Women in West Midlands April 2007

		Average gross annual pay of full time men & women	% of the average gross annual pay of full time men & women in UK
	United Kingdom	£29,999	100%
	West Midlands	£26,557	89%
rank
1	Solihull	£31,049	104%
2	Warwickshire	£28,533	95%
3	Coventry	£28,431	95%
4	Birmingham	£28,252	94%
5	Wolverhampton	£27,386	91%
6	Herefordshire, County of	£26,119	87%
7	Telford and Wrekin	£25,872	86%
8	Shropshire	£25,275	84%
9	Dudley	£25,133	84%
10	Staffordshire	£25,002	83%
11	Worcestershire	£24,750	83%
12	Sandwell	£24,421	81%
13	Stoke-on-Trent	£23,958	80%
14	Walsall	£23,552	79%

 

Joe Morgan, GMB Regional Secretary for the West Midlands said, “This GMB analysis shows that the Region has not yet managed to replace the well paid, highly skilled manufacturing jobs, for which the Region was famous, with new well paid, highly skilled services jobs.

 

Economic development is a top priority if we are not to fall further down the pay league. This is the yardstick that needs to be used to measure economic and industrial policy put forward by policy makers. This analysis shows how much has to be done to achieve a fairer distribution of the benefits of economic development.”

 

Ends

 

Contact: Joe Morgan, GMB Regional Secretary for the West Midlands on 0121 550 4888 or GMB Press Office: Steve Pryle on 07921 289880 or Rose Conroy on 07974 251823.

 

Notes to Editors:

1        These figures are from a new analysis by GMB, Britain’s general union, of the recently published Table 7.7a of the 2007 Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings by the Office of National Statistics. These are the most recent figures from the survey in April 2007. GMB’s analysis ranks the average gross annual pay for full time men and women workers from the highest to the lowest for each region and area of the UK and expresses the pay in each area as a percentage of the average annual pay of full time men and women in UK. The figures are for jobs in the area. What is shown is an average of the gross pay of the higher and lower paid jobs.