Lists of the best-paid jobs in Britain usually come from job adverts, which measure what employers hope to pay, or from self-reported surveys, which measure what people are willing to admit. This one comes from PAYE records. The Office for National Statistics' Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings for 2025 publishes a median salary for around 400 occupations defined by the Standard Occupational Classification, and the ten below are the highest.
Two rules. The ranking uses median gross annual pay for all employees, the figure ONS treats as the headline. And an occupation only qualifies if ONS rates its estimate as precise, with a sampling error of 10% or less. That excludes a handful of well-paid but thinly sampled groups, listed at the end, and it means every figure here is one ONS itself would stand behind.
The top ten
- Aircraft pilots and air traffic controllers — £107,712. The only occupation with a six-figure median, 3.3 times the £32,890 that all UK employees earn. Around 20,000 jobs, up 11.7% on the year. ONS puts the sampling error at exactly 10%, so this one sits on the line.
- Information technology directors — £90,081. Some 60,000 jobs, and a 12% rise on the year, the second-largest in the list.
- Marketing, sales and advertising directors — £90,000. A far bigger group than IT directors, at 216,000 jobs, with a top 10% earning more than £179,747.
- Chief executives and senior officials — £89,835. The median is below the three above it, but the mean is £141,016, a sign of how far the top of this group stretches. 133,000 jobs.
- Specialist medical practitioners — £88,997. Hospital consultants and other specialists, 187,000 of them. Up 26.9% on the year, by a distance the largest rise anywhere in the top ten. The top 10% earn more than £163,434.
- Train and tram drivers — £76,176. The only non-managerial, non-professional occupation in the list, and the most precisely measured, with a sampling error of 1.5%. Up 19.3% on the year. Full breakdown here.
- Public relations and communications directors — £72,020.
- Head teachers and principals — £70,977. 63,000 jobs, and the smallest rise in the list at 2.4%. Full breakdown here.
- Functional managers and directors not elsewhere classified — £69,996. The catch-all for senior managers who do not fit a named category. 136,000 jobs.
- Senior police officers — £66,514. Inspector rank and above. 14,000 jobs, up 3.9%.
Just outside: financial managers and directors at £65,336, the largest group of all with 430,000 jobs. Their median is eleventh, but their mean is £103,706 and their top 10% earn more than £180,401, the highest 90th percentile ONS publishes for any occupation. More on what that means below.
The list changes if you count only full-time work
The all-employees median includes part-time workers, and in some of these occupations that matters. Ranked on full-time pay only:
- Chief executives and senior officials: £99,944
- Marketing, sales and advertising directors: £94,135
- Specialist medical practitioners: £92,847
- Information technology directors: £91,671
- Financial managers and directors: £76,447
- Train and tram drivers: £76,327
- Functional managers and directors n.e.c.: £75,711
- Head teachers and principals: £72,192
- Senior police officers: £66,690
Chief executives jump from fourth to first, and financial managers enter the list. Pilots drop out: their full-time figure of £82,746 carries a 16% sampling error, above the threshold, so ONS does not consider it precise enough to rank. Train drivers barely move between the two lists, because almost every train driver is full-time.
Median, mean and the top 10%
The gap between median and mean is the most useful thing in this table, and it is largest where pay is most unequal. For chief executives the mean is 57% above the median. For financial managers it is 59% above. For train drivers the mean, £73,202, is actually below the median: train driver pay is compressed into a narrow band set by collective agreements, so there is no long tail of very high earners to pull the average up.
If you are looking at one of these careers, the question is not what the median is but which distribution you would be joining. A chief executive's median of £89,835 describes a group where half earn less than that and a small number earn many multiples of it. A head teacher's £70,977 describes a group where the top quarter starts at £83,340 and the pay scale is published.
Where the rises were
Year-on-year changes in ASHE compare the 2025 provisional median with the 2024 figure for the same occupation, unadjusted for inflation. Across all UK employees the median rose 4.1%. In the top ten:
- Specialist medical practitioners: +26.9%
- Train and tram drivers: +19.3%
- IT directors: +12.0%
- Pilots and air traffic controllers: +11.7%
- Chief executives: +9.8%
- Marketing directors: +8.5%
- Head teachers: +2.4%
Two of the three biggest rises are in occupations whose pay is set by national negotiation rather than by individual bargaining. ASHE records the outcome, not the reason, and we will leave the reason to the people who covered those disputes.
What did not make the cut
Four occupations have medians that would place them in the top ten but sampling errors ONS says are too large to rely on: directors in logistics, warehousing and transport (£80,518, 16% error), directors in consultancy services (£73,453, 19%), rail and rolling stock builders and repairers (£64,322, 14%) and production managers in mining and energy (£63,241, 11%). They are probably well paid. ONS is not confident enough in the exact figure to say how well, and neither are we.
Missing entirely are the occupations ASHE cannot see: anyone self-employed, which removes most barristers, GPs in partnership, and company owners who pay themselves in dividends. This is a list of the best-paid employees in Britain. For every occupation ONS publishes, in one table, see the full A to Z; to find out where your own salary falls in your occupation's distribution, use the salary check.