Shock figures show agents’ pay has collapsed one-third in 10 years

Estate agents are amongst the workers to suffer the worst fall in wages over the past 10 years according to shock figures produced by financial services company Wagestream.

The company has categorised many careers and assessed how much their typical salaries have fallen during the decade from July 2018.

For the estate agents and auctioneers’ category the drop is notionally 12.6 per cent, from an average £34,787 in July 2008 to £30,411 today; but once inflation is taken into account, the real-terms pay cut suffered by agents is typically 33.3 per cent. 

This is one of the worst falls of any category of job or profession - the worst of all was door-to-door salespeople, whose typical earnings of £23,654 in 2008 has dropped to £16,505 today, which in real terms after inflation is no less than a 46.7 per cent plunge.

Other occupations to see significant price falls include management consultants (down 11.6 per cent from £53,042 to £46,891 — or down 32.5 per cent in real terms); and traffic wardens (down 7.6 per cent from £21,908 to £20,243 — or down 29.5 per cent in real terms).

Public sector workers suffering real-terms falls include nurses, police offices and teachers - between 10.7 and 15.0 per cent down in real terms.

“Most UK workers are still in a worse position than they were in 2008, with very few people seeing a real-terms pay increase over that period. Some of the UK’s lowest-paid people have been hit by falling wages, resulting in their disposable income being cut to nothing, and making budgeting harder” says Peter Briffett, chief executive of Wagestream.