The Datum Report

Occupation 4122 · Administrative and secretarial occupations

Book-keepers, payroll managers and wages clerks

Half of full-time book-keepers, payroll managers and wages clerks in the UK earn more than £31,560 a year, and half earn less.

Book-keepers, payroll managers and wages clerks maintain and balance records of financial transactions, oversee the operation of payroll functions and calculate hours worked, wages due and other relevant contributions and deductions.

How people enter it

There are no minimum academic requirements, although entrants typically possess GCSEs/S grades or equivalent qualifications, and maths may be required. Training is typically provided on-the-job. NVQs/SVQs in relevant areas are available, and apprenticeships may be available in some areas.

What the work involves

• records and checks accuracy of daily financial transactions
• prepares provisional balances and reconciles these with appropriate accounts
• supervises payroll team and develops payroll systems and procedures
• calculates and records hours worked, wages due, deductions and voluntary contributions
• processes holiday, sick and maternity pay and travel and subsistence expenses
• compiles schedules and distributes or arranges distribution of wages and salaries
• calculates costs and overheads and prepares analyses for management

Also called

Accounts administrator · Accounts assistant · Accounts clerk · Auditor · Bookkeeper · Payroll manager

What it pays

How pay has changed

Median gross annual pay for book-keepers, payroll managers and wages clerks, full-time employees, 2023 to 2025. Each point is that year's ASHE April snapshot as published — revisions are not backfilled into earlier years, and a year ONS withheld is a gap rather than a joined line.

ONS, ASHE Table 14 - occupation by four-digit SOC (national). Table

Year-on-year change

The change from each year to the next, in per cent, computed from the figures in the chart above — so the two cannot disagree.

ONS, ASHE Table 14 - occupation by four-digit SOC (national). Table

Pay by region

Median gross annual pay for full-time employees, ranked, against the UK figure. 11 of 11 regions are published: ONS withholds a cell where the survey sample cannot support it, and those are shown as gaps rather than dropped — an absent region is not a region without the work in it.

ONS, ASHE Table 14 - occupation by four-digit SOC (national). Period 2025. Table

Every regional figure

ONS does not publish occupational pay below region. Cells the survey could not support are shown as withheld, with its reason — adding a region split to a specific occupation leaves roughly a tenth of cells publishable.

Common questions

Classified alongside this

Bank and post office clerks · Credit controllers · Finance officers · Financial administrative occupations n.e.c.