Which workers will get the best pay rise this year?

If you happen to be reading this in Leeds before going off to work as a builder, then congratulations - 2016 looks like being a good year for your bank balance.

While pay growth on average across the UK currently amounts to a measly 2% a year, according to the Office for National Statistics, there's a great deal of variation depending on where you live and the sector you work in.

And, according to jobs website CV-Library, many places are showing little or no pay growth at all: Cardiff and Exeter, for example.

At the other end of the scale, Leeds tops the list of cities seeing the highest growth in pay during 2015. Meanwhile, workers in Sheffield got pay rises last year that were on average more than twice as big as those in the rest of the UK, and people in Bristol, London and Southampton also did well.

The data gives the lie to the idea that only in the south are wages rising.

"It's great to see that cities across the entire nation have seen a rise in advertised salaries and that salary increases aren't concentrated in one particular region," says Lee Biggins, founder and managing director of CV-Library.
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When it comes to job sectors, it's construction which saw the biggest pay rises last year - up by up 10.20%, says CV-Library.

The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors is more cautious, but still pegs last year's pay inflation at more than 6% in its new UK Construction Market Survey, out this week.

The reason is a shortage of skilled construction workers, with two thirds of employers reporting problems with recruitment. Bricklayers and quantity surveyors are reported to be in particularly short supply, with 62% and 60% of survey respondents saying they're having difficulty finding these workers.

"While workloads are still growing at a relatively healthy pace, labour shortages in the construction sector are causing delays at different stages in the development process and leading to significant problems with project planning," says RICS chief economist Simon Rubinsohn.

"That said, industry wages are becoming increasingly attractive, and I would hope that over time this will encourage skilled workers to return to the sector, as well as drawing school leavers and graduates towards construction industry careers."

Retail saw the second-highest growth in pay last year, up 5.8%. And with the new 'living' wage due to come in this year, many more people will be set for a pay rise.

Indeed, in the services sector - which includes retail - four in ten employers recently told the Confederation of British Industry that they expected to have to pay staff more as a result of the new minimum level.

Meanwhile, media jobs are getting better-paid, says CV-Library, rising by 5.65% last year. But be warned: a recent survey from the National Union of Journalists found that four-fifths of staffers and freelancers said their pay hadn't kept up with the cost of living last year.

Fifteen percent of respondents said they hadn't had a pay rise for more than two years, and a fifth said they earned less than £20,000.

And in any case, as they say, past performance isn't any guarantee of future results. Official figures published later this week are expected to show real pay growth starting to stall, particularly as inflation starts to pick up.

As a result, says Adam Corlett, economic analyst at the Resolution Foundation think-tank, it could take a while before UK workers regain the six years of pay growth lost during the squeeze on earnings that followed the financial crisis of 2008.

If we want pay rises, we'll need to be more productive, he says.

"2015 brought much good news, with the combination of ultra-low inflation and interest rates providing a boost to the living standards of many households," he says.

"Conditions are set to gradually alter in 2016, meaning that pay growth must now do more of the work. Crucially, that will depend on a return to sustained productivity growth in the UK."

Top ten UK cities for pay rises
Leeds: average salary £29,670.29, up 4.66%
Sheffield: average salary £28,069.21, up 4.18%
Bristol: average salary £31,316.29, up 3.32%
London: average salary £36,523.08, up 2.52%
Southampton: average salary £30,119.67, up 2.10%
Edinburgh: average salary £30,615.08, up 1.78%
Birmingham: average salary £30,978.17, up 1.03%
Manchester: average salary £29,620.38, up 0.57%
Exeter: average salary £27,274.96, up 0.49%
Cardiff: average salary £30,705.83, up 0.15%

Top ten UK sectors for pay rises
Construction: average salary £40,496.08, up 10.20%
Retail: average salary £26,051.88, up 5.86%
Media: average salary £29,530.92, up 5.65%
Charity: average salary £24,339.17, up 4.20%
Automotive: average salary £29,298.08, up 3.68%
Property Services: average salary £29,169.38, up 3.39%
Consulting: average salary £38,862.88, up 3.10%
Legal: average salary £28,539.96, up 3.02%
Hospitality: average salary £24,343.29, up 2.56%
Manufacturing: average salary £29,260.33, up 2.40%