"The Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) replaced the New Earnings Survey (NES) as ONS' main source for information on the distribution of earnings.The first few sections of this article present summary analysis: overall medians, make-up and distribution of earnings of the 2005 ASHE. The analysis compares the 2005 results with the 2004 results including supplementary information (and where relevant the 1997 to 2004 back series). While these figures are of interest, they can hide wide variations between different industries, occupations, regions and age groups. The concluding sections of the article give summary analyses of each of these factors.This article uses the median as its key estimator. It is preferred to the mean for earnings as it is less affected by extreme values and the skewed distribution of earnings data. The median is the value below which 50 per cent of employees fall. However means are still available in the annual published results."

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