Private sector wages in Northern Ireland are still lagging behind the public sector even as wages hit a record high, a report has said.
Earnings in the economy as a whole were at a record level in April after climbing for the sixth year in a row, with workers in the private sector having the bigger increase, the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) 2026 said on Thursday.
But earnings for workers in the public sector here are still higher than their counterparts in the private sector, at £840 a week compared to £708 — a gap of 18.6pc.
However, the gap between male and female earnings was narrowing, the ASHE said.
The report from the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (Nisra) provides provisional estimates for 2026 and final revised estimates for 2025.
The data said that median gross weekly earnings for all full-time employees in Northern Ireland were £754 in April 2026, up £44 (6.1pc) from £711 in 2025.
That was the sixth consecutive annual increase, ASHE said — and a stronger rate of increase than the 5.8pc growth for workers in the UK as a whole.
But there remained a gap of nearly 8pc between wages here and those in the UK, with median gross weekly earnings for full-time workers of £811 in the UK.
The ASHE said that weekly earnings increased across all 12 UK regions in 2026, but added that “Northern Ireland remained around the middle of the regional earnings rankings, with median weekly earnings 7pc below the UK median”.
Wages growth in Northern Ireland had also picked up in recent years, ASHE said, with average annual growth since 2021 of 6.1pc, compared to 2.2pc between 2006 and 2020.
ASHE said the trend “broadly reflects the strong earnings growth observed across the UK in recent years”.
Real weekly earnings, adjusted for inflation, in Northern Ireland increased by 3.1pc in 2026, following rises of 2.8pc in 2025 and 0.9pc in 2024. That had followed two years of decline of 0.7pc in 2023 and 3.7pc in 2022.
Real earnings are now at their highest level in the 20-year series, the ASHE said, standing 7.1pc above their pre-pandemic level in 2019.
For the UK as a whole, real weekly earnings increased by 2.8pc over the year.
Over the past year, private sector weekly earnings in NI increased by 6.8pc, compared with a 5pc increase in the public sector.
It followed particularly strong growth of 9.3pc in public sector earnings in 2025, which ASHE said partly reflected the implementation of backdated multi-year pay settlements.
Despite slower growth in 2026, public sector weekly earnings (£840) remained higher than private sector earnings (£708).
Real earnings in the private sector increased by 3.7pc in the year to 2026, outpacing the 1.9pc increase recorded in the public sector.
Compared with pre-pandemic levels in 2019, private sector real earnings have increased by 12.3pc, while public sector real earnings have grown by 2pc. Private sector real earnings have reached their highest level on record.
According to the ASHE, low-paid jobs accounted for 4pc of employee jobs in 2026, up 0.5 percentage points from the record low of 3.5pc in 2025.
Despite remaining significantly below the 26pc recorded in 2016, when the National Living Wage was introduced, Northern Ireland had the highest proportion of low-paid jobs of the 12 UK regions.
The proportion of eligible employee jobs paid below the applicable National Living Wage (NLW) or National Minimum Wage (NMW) was estimated at 1pc in 2026. This was similar to the revised 2025 estimate (0.9pc) and below the 2024 rate (1.6pc).
It also remained close to the pre-Covid level in 2019 (1.1pc) and significantly below the peaks recorded in 2020 (11.2pc) and 2021 (5.8pc), when earnings were affected by furlough.
In 2026, the gender pay gap here stood at 7.1pc in favour of men when considering all employees, regardless of working pattern, meaning that for every £1 earned by men, women earned approximately 93p. This gap narrowed slightly from 7.4pc in 2025.
In comparison, females in the UK earned 12.3pc less than males on average in 2026, down from 12.9pc in 2025. The gender pay gap has narrowed considerably in both regions over the last two decades, falling from 14pc to 7.1pc in NI and from 22.2pc to 12.3pc in the UK since 2006.
Median annual earnings for full-time employees in NI were £38,200 in 2026, approximately £2,700 lower than the UK median of £40,900.
The highest 10pc of full-time earners in NI earned at least £68,400, the ASHE said.