Skills and qualifications

Pay and earnings levels vary significantly for different occupations and pay systems often take skills and qualifications into account. The Social Market Foundation estimates the premium for having a nationally-recognised skills qualification is around 10%, although on other evidence it can be as low as 2% or as high as 20% (Making progress: Boosting the skills and wage prospects of the low paid, www.smf.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Publication-Making-Progress-Boosting-the-skills-and-wage-prospects-of-the-low-paid.pdf).

However, there is considerable scope for pay systems to vary in how they recognise skills and qualifications, depending on occupation, types of training involved, or qualifications required. Among pay agreements on the LRD Payline database, the pay premium for a “skilled” job can be anything from 10% or less, to 50% or more (for example, comparing a skilled worker at GKN Aerospace Engineering in Yeovil with a production operator www.lrd.org.uk/index.php?pagid=18).