October 2018 performance
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 2017 (released October 2017). The next release of data is expected in November 2018.

There is significant variation in resident earnings levels within West Sussex with Adur having the lowest levels of earnings – at around £478 per week compared with that in Mid Sussex of £652. Arun, Chichester and Mid Sussex saw some increase in the weekly level of earnings over the last year (2016-2017) the highest increase being in Arun of 7.5%, and falls in earnings were seen in the remaining local authority areas – the largest drop being seen in Crawley where earnings of residents fell by 6.7%.

Comparison between the earnings for those who live in the county and those who work in the county show that with the exception of Crawley and Adur resident earnings are higher. The biggest difference is in Mid Sussex where earnings for those living in Mid Sussex are, on average, £108 higher than for those working in the district. In Adur earnings for those working in the area are £13.5 than the earnings for residents and in Crawley earnings for those working in Crawley are £66 per week higher than earnings of residents; indeed Crawley has the highest level of workplace based earnings in West Sussex–indicating that local residents are not accessing local, more highly paid, and highly skilled jobs, though the workplace earnings have decreased over the year.