Average salary Scotland: what full time workers earn

The average full time salary in Scotland is £41,591 a year. That's the middle figure from the ONS earnings survey for April 2026, published on 22 October 2026. Half of full time workers who live in Scotland earn more than that, and half earn less.

The average wage in Scotland, by the week and by the hour

The same survey gives the middle full time wage as £825.40 a week before tax, or £21.59 an hour leaving out overtime. The yearly figure was up 4.2% on April 2025.

You might notice £825.40 times 52 comes to more than £41,591. That's because the yearly figure only counts people who've been in the same job for at least a year, so it leaves out people who've just started somewhere new.

Scotland comes out slightly ahead of the UK as a whole on this measure. The UK middle full time salary is £40,911, so Scotland is £680 higher.

Average salary in every Scottish council

Where you live makes a real difference. These are the middle full time salaries for people living in each council area, highest first.

East Renfrewshire is top at £49,073. Dumfries and Galloway is lowest at £34,683, a gap of £14,390 a year between the two. The two commuter areas next to Glasgow, East Renfrewshire and East Dunbartonshire, lead the table. The bottom end is mostly rural: Dumfries and Galloway, Moray and the Borders.

Average salary in Edinburgh

Full time workers who live in Edinburgh earn £43,272 in the middle, or £851.00 a week. Jobs based in the city pay a bit more, £44,574. That second figure counts jobs by where the work is, so it includes everyone who travels in from outside the city.

Edinburgh pay comes with Edinburgh rents, though. A one bedroom flat in the Lothian area averaged £1,036 a month in September 2026, the most of Scotland's four big cities. I've worked through what that leaves on the lowest wage in minimum wage in Edinburgh.

Average salary in Aberdeen

Aberdeen residents working full time earn £43,092 in the middle. But jobs based in Aberdeen pay £45,696, the highest of Scotland's four big cities. Next door, people living in Aberdeenshire earn £45,213. That suggests a good share of the better paid city jobs go to people who live outside it.

Rents in the Aberdeen area are far lower than in Edinburgh or Glasgow, which changes the picture for lower paid workers. More in minimum wage in Aberdeen.

What the average salary takes home

On £41,591, with Scottish income tax and National Insurance for 2026/27 and no pension or student loan, you take home:

For round numbers either side, see £40,000 after tax in Scotland and £45,000 after tax in Scotland, or put in your own salary on the take home pay calculator.

What the lowest and highest paid earn

One average hides a wide spread. This is how full time pay in Scotland lines up, from the bottom tenth to the top tenth.

A full time job on the legal minimum comes to £24,785 a year, below even the lowest tenth here. That's partly because a lot of minimum wage work is part time, and part time jobs aren't in these figures at all. Count everyone, full and part time, and the middle salary drops to £34,559. The rates and take home pay at the bottom end are in my minimum wage Scotland guide.

Where these figures come from

The pay figures on this page come from the ONS Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings. Each April it asks employers about 1% of employees, picked from PAYE records. I think it's the best picture of pay by council that's published. It doesn't cover the self employed, and full time means more than 30 paid hours a week.

The 2026 figures are provisional. ONS revises them when next year's figures come out. Council figures come from smaller samples than the Scotland figure, so treat small differences between neighbouring councils with care.