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Official ONS earnings · 167 occupations

Salaries in Wales 2026

What people actually earn across Wales, by occupation — median gross annual pay from the ONS Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings.

Typical occupation

£32,489

The midpoint across every occupation ONS publishes for this region

Lowest paid

£10,404

Median pay in the lowest-paying occupation here

Highest paid

£86,152

Median pay in the highest-paying occupation here

ONS doesn't publish a single “average wage” per region in this dataset, so the typical figure above is the midpoint of 167 published occupation medians — it describes the spread of occupations, not the average worker. Read the methodology before using it to evaluate an offer.

Highest-paying occupations in Wales

Specialist medical practitioners £86,152
Head teachers and principals £76,119 Business and financial project management professionals £53,924 Quantity surveyors £53,752 Sales accounts and business development managers £52,223
Social services managers and directors £51,651
IT business analysts, architects and systems designers £49,827 Higher education teaching professionals £48,809
Secondary education teaching professionals £48,006
Purchasing managers and directors £47,971
Production managers and directors in manufacturing £47,944
Production and process engineers £47,056
Police officers (sergeant and below) £46,768 Paramedics £46,767 Engineering project managers and project engineers £46,626
Primary education teaching professionals £46,291
IT managers £45,970 Programmers and software development professionals £45,942 Special needs education teaching professionals £45,462
Rail travel assistants £45,125
Electrical service and maintenance mechanics and repairers £44,546
Mechanical engineers £44,386
Residential, day and domiciliary care managers and proprietors £44,143
Research and development (R&D) managers £44,036
Aircraft maintenance and related trades £43,710

Lowest-paying occupations in Wales

Kitchen and catering assistants £10,404
Cleaners and domestics £10,487
Company secretaries and administrators £12,466
Sales and retail assistants £14,568
Educational support assistants £17,212
Cooks £17,717
Teaching assistants £18,002
Early education and childcare practitioners £18,402
Receptionists £19,337
Animal care services occupations n.e.c. £20,190

Compare Wales with another region

See which occupations pay more on each side.

vs East of England vs East Midlands vs London vs North East vs North West vs Scotland vs South East vs South West vs West Midlands vs Yorkshire and The Humber

Source: Office for National Statistics, Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ONS Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings, 2025 provisional), Table 15. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.