Executive Assistant Salary: What Public UK Pay Statistics Really Measure

Why there is no single executive assistant salary in the official data

The Office for National Statistics does not publish a figure labelled "executive assistant". Its Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings measures employee jobs, grouped by occupation, and the headline numbers cover full-time employees as a whole. So any search for an executive assistant salary quickly runs into a gap: there is plenty of official data about pay in general, and very little that isolates this particular role.

The gap matters because "executive assistant" covers a wide range of jobs. A personal assistant supporting one director in a small firm, a board-level executive assistant coordinating a listed company's governance calendar, and a team coordinator in a public body may all use similar job titles on very different contracts and pay structures. Treat any single number you see quoted as a starting point, not a fact.

The latest ASHE release does give a firm anchor. Median weekly earnings for full-time employees were £766.60 in April 2025, a rise of 5.3% in nominal terms and 1.1% in real terms after adjusting for CPIH inflation. Median gross annual earnings for full-time employees were £39,039, against £37,439 a year earlier, an increase of 4.3%. Median hourly earnings, excluding overtime, were £19.67 compared with £18.66.

Those figures describe the whole full-time workforce. They are a benchmark for an executive assistant salary, not a quotation for it.

What the published statistics actually measure

ASHE draws on employer responses covering a 1% sample of employees, identified through HM Revenue and Customs PAYE records. The 2025 estimates are provisional and relate to the pay period that includes 30 April 2025.

Two details are easy to miss. First, annual pay figures in ASHE cover employees who have been in the job for a year or more, and they include pay affected by absence, such as special leave or parental leave. That means the annual numbers are not directly comparable with the weekly or hourly numbers. Second, "full-time" in ASHE means more than 30 paid hours a week, or 25 or more for the teaching professions. Part-time is 30 hours or fewer.

That definition matters for executive assistants, because plenty of senior roles are advertised at 30 or 32 hours a week. Such a job will not appear in the full-time median, however senior the work.

The bulletin itself focuses mainly on median weekly earnings for full-time employees, which is why the annual and hourly figures are sometimes overlooked. Occupation-level tables exist in the underlying dataset, and they are the closest thing to an executive assistant benchmark in official data, but they group roles together and cannot separate a senior board-level assistant from a general administrator.

Median, mean and advertised pay

The ONS prefers the median, which is the middle value when every job is ranked from lowest to highest, because a relatively small number of very high earners pulls the mean upwards. Our on-site benchmarks reflect the same spread: roughly £39,039 for the UK median full-time gross annual figure, which is about £3,253 a month, and about £45,800 for the mean, which is roughly £3,817 a month.

Advertised pay is a third thing again. It is what employers choose to publish, it is self-selected rather than sampled, and it frequently leaves out bonus, overtime, London weighting and pension contributions. Advertised pay tells you what the market is asking for now. ASHE tells you what employees are actually paid. Use both, but do not confuse them.

The legal floor behind any salary offer

The National Living Wage and National Minimum Wage set the minimum hourly rates. On the ASHE reference date in April 2025, GOV.UK National Living Wage rates were £12.21 for employees aged 21 and over, £10.00 for those aged 18 to 20, and £7.55 for those aged 16 to 17 and for apprentices in the relevant categories.

At 37.5 hours a week, £12.21 an hour is roughly £23,810 gross a year, or about £1,984 a month, before tax. Our reference benchmark for the current year uses £12.71 an hour for age 21 and over, which gives about £24,785 a year, or roughly £2,065 a month at the same hours.

Very few executive assistant roles sit at the floor. The floor still matters, because employers sometimes quote an annual figure for a part-time post without making clear whether it is the full-time equivalent or the pro-rata amount. Always ask which one applies.

Gross pay, take-home pay and the Scottish difference

Gross pay is not take-home pay. HMRC publishes the PAYE thresholds each tax year. For 2025 to 2026 the standard employee personal allowance is £12,570 a year, £1,048 a month or £242 a week. In England and Northern Ireland the basic rate of 20% applies to taxable income up to £37,700 above the personal allowance, with 40% from £37,701 to £125,140 and 45% above that.

Scotland uses different bands: starter 19%, basic 20%, intermediate 21%, higher 42%, advanced 45% and top 48%, each with its own thresholds. At around the UK median, taxable pay of roughly £26,500 means a taxpayer in England or Northern Ireland stays inside the basic rate, while part of a Scottish taxpayer's income falls into the intermediate band. The difference is modest at that level, but it grows further up the scale. Class 1 National Insurance contributions are separate again.

A precise net figure depends on pension contributions, salary sacrifice, student loan repayments and your tax code, so we do not quote one. What you can do is compare two offers on the same basis: gross salary, employer pension contribution, holiday entitlement, and any location or on-call payments.

What public sector scales tell you

Public-sector pay is published in detail, which makes it useful for comparison. NHS Employers publishes annual, hourly and high cost area supplement pay scales for 2026/27, effective from 1 April. NHS England Digital reports that in NHS trusts and other core organisations in England, mean annual basic pay per full-time equivalent post was £43,857 in the twelve months to the end of April 2026, £2,196 or 5.3% more than a year earlier. Mean annual earnings per person were £44,503, and mean annual non-basic pay per person was £5,492.

Those figures cover the entire NHS workforce and vary considerably by staff group, so they are context for an executive assistant salary rather than a like-for-like comparison. They do show two things clearly: that basic pay and total earnings are different measures, and that high cost area supplements can add materially in London and surrounding areas. Private-sector employers in the same locations often mirror that logic with a London allowance.

How to use the numbers when you negotiate

Work out first what you are comparing. Full-time equivalent or pro rata? Basic pay or total earnings including overtime and on-call? Basic pay or the whole package including pension?

Then check the practical details: whether bonus is contractual or discretionary, when the next pay review falls, what the employer pension contribution is, and whether the role is genuinely full-time under the ASHE definition of more than 30 paid hours. If a recruiter quotes a range, ask which end reflects the employer's budget and which reflects the top of the band after several years' service.

If you want more context, our salary data pages set out the core benchmarks, the salary index tracks how median and mean pay move over time, and salary articles cover specific occupations and sectors. You can also start from UK Average Salary or browse topics if you are weighing up more than one role.

Finally, treat every published figure as a range, not a promise. Official statistics tell you where the middle of the labour market sits. Your offer depends on the employer, the sector, the location and what you bring to the job.