The Money Statistics - September 2025

September 2025 edition of The Money Statistics,

The Money Charity’s complete monthly round-up of statistics about how we use money in the UK, kindly funded by Vanquis.   

• Average total real pay for all workers in the UK grew by only 2.1% in total in the seventeen years from 2008 to 2025. This is the longest period of near-static pay since the beginning of the industrial revolution, 250 years ago.
• However, changes in real pay since 2008 have varied by sector, with some sectors rising while others have fallen.  
  • From Feb 2008 to July 2025, real pay rose by 0.8% in finance and business services, by 0.3% in manufacturing, by 2.7% in the broad services sector and by 6.3% in wholesale, retail, hotels and restaurants (the lowest paid sector).
  • Over the same period, real pay fell by 0.1% in the public sector and by 4.2% in the construction sector.
•  Petrol prices dipped slightly, giving some relief to drivers of petrol and diesel cars. During August 2025, the average price of unleaded petrol fell by 0.39 ppl to 134.64 ppl.
• Real GDP increased by just 0.2% in the three months to July 2025 compared with the previous three months to April, while inflation persisted at 3.8% in August, a conundrum widely covered in the media.
  

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