UK payrolled employees: all industries
UK payrolled employees: all industries stood at 30,227,243 people in Aug 2026, according to Office for National Statistics (ONS). It is one of the indicators in the Pay and employment from PAYE table (Value · Monthly), with a complete series running from Jul 2014 to Aug 2026. The complete series with an interactive chart, free to download.
This indicator in the Pay and employment from PAYE table
| Indicator | 08-2026 | 07-2026 | 06-2026 | 05-2026 | 04-2026 | 03-2026 | 02-2026 | 01-2026 | 12-2025 | 11-2025 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Payrolled employees by industry | |||||||||||
| UK, all industries | 30,227,243 | 30,253,340 | 30,272,659 | 30,294,727 | 30,298,773 | 30,315,816 | 30,322,380 | 30,332,401 | 30,322,428 | 30,317,302 | |
| A — Agriculture, forestry and fishing | 193,416 | 193,856 | 194,567 | 195,094 | 194,852 | 196,019 | 195,347 | 195,448 | 195,485 | 195,575 |
Understanding UK payrolled employees: all industries
This series tracks the aggregate count of individuals residing within the United Kingdom who receive pay through employer tax submissions. The measure captures every person with an active record on company payrolls, regardless of whether they work full-time or part-time, provided their earnings meet the threshold for tax reporting. Self-employed individuals, company directors taking solely dividends, and those relying entirely on state benefits are excluded from this total. Unlike the industry-specific sibling series in this dataset, this aggregate figure offers an overarching view of the entire labour market without any sectoral decomposition.
Interpreting this series requires careful attention to regular monthly revisions, which occur as late tax submissions arrive from employers. Seasonal patterns frequently influence these figures, making comparisons against the same period twelve months prior more reliable than consecutive monthly changes for identifying genuine direction. Analysts should note that structural shifts in company classification can occasionally cause unexpected jumps in the series. When comparing these administrative figures with sample survey estimates of employment, discrepancies often arise due to differing definitions of contractor status and the handling of multiple jobholders.
Frequently asked questions
- Does this series count individual workers or total jobs?
- The measure counts individual people, meaning a person holding multiple concurrent jobs appears only once in the aggregate total.
- Why do the preliminary figures for the latest months undergo frequent revisions?
- Late arrivals of real-time employer tax returns necessitate upward or downward adjustments once complete data for the period becomes available.
- Are individuals working below the tax-reporting threshold included in the count?
- Workers earning beneath the lower earnings limit for tax submission are generally omitted from these administrative records.