West Sussex lies in the top quartile compared with its statistical neighbours in terms of gross weekly pay levels of full-time workers, resident in West Sussex.   At £602.20 gross weekly pay the levels in West Sussex are slightly higher than the national average (£591.30) but lower than the regional average at £636.00.  There continues to be a wide variation across the county, with residents in Chichester, on average, receiving £658.5 weekly gross pay levels, compared with Arun which has the lowest levels at £513.60.

Earnings levels of residents continue to be higher than the average earnings levels of people working in West Sussex.  The exception continues to be in Crawley where weekly earnings levels for people working in Crawley are higher than the regional and national average.

West Sussex continues to be within the top quartile compared with its statistical neighbours in terms of resident earnings, Hampshire has the highest level earnings (£632.2) compared with the Devon, the lowest (£496).  However, the West Sussex average weekly earnings at £574.9 is the same as the national average, but 7% lower than the regional average.  Indeed, when compared with its South East upper tier/unitary authority counterparts West Sussex lies 15th out of the 19 authorities.  West Sussex did have one of the highest percentage increases in earnings over the year in the South East at 4.2%, higher than the regional and national average.

The latest earnings data suggests that there continues to be significant variation in resident earnings levels within West Sussex.  Lowest average gross weekly earnings for full time working residents are found in Arun at £507.20 compared with Horsham at £649.8.  Mid Sussex, and to a lesser extent Arun and Chichester have seen a fall in earnings over the year 2017-28 whereas Adur saw a 10% increase.

Average weekly earnings in Crawley continue to be higher for those people working in the area, Crawley’s workplace based earnings are higher than the national and regional average.  Earnings for people working in Arun are the lowest in West Sussex.

The Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) is a UK-wide survey that provides information on hourly, weekly and annual earnings by gender and work patterns, and at national and regional level geographies on industry and occupation, including public versus private sector pay comparisons. The annual series dates back to 2002, though there have been some methodological changes over this time. The data is generally available at local authority level, though in some cases due to sampling issues the data can be suppressed for particular variables. The latest figures are for 2018 (released November 2018). The next release of data is expected in November 2019.