Published by Global Banking & Finance Review®
Posted on March 5, 2026
2 min readLast updated: April 2, 2026
Add as preferred source on GoogleUK firms’ expected year‑ahead wage growth held steady at 3.6% in February — the joint‑lowest since the survey began in 2022 — underscoring easing pay pressures as the Bank of England eyes interest‑rate cuts.
LONDON, March 5 (Reuters) - British employers' expectations for wage growth held at their joint-lowest in nearly four years in February, according to a survey published by the Bank of England, which is looking out for further signs of a slowdown in pay pressure before it next cuts interest rates.
Expected year-ahead wage growth remained at 3.6% on a three-month moving-average basis in February, the joint-lowest reading since the series started in 2022, the monthly Decision Maker Panel survey showed on Thursday.
Companies' expectations for how much they would raise their own prices in the coming 12 months inched down, falling by 0.1 percentage points to 3.4% in the three months to February.
Companies also said they expected to expand staffing levels by 0.1% over the coming year.
The central bank is closely monitoring wage growth as it tries to gauge how much inflation pressure remains in the economy and is expected to keep interest rates at 3.75% this month after holding them in February.
Investors trimmed their bets on interest rate cuts by the Bank of England this week and are only pricing in one quarter-point cut this year as the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran continued to stoke fears about inflation.
The BoE survey was conducted before the most recent Middle East conflict started.
(Reporting by Suban Abdulla; editing by David Milliken)
The survey showed that expected year-ahead wage growth stayed at 3.6% in February, the joint-lowest since the survey began in 2022.
They have stayed at their joint-lowest level in nearly four years, according to the Bank of England's monthly Decision Maker Panel.
The Bank is watching wage growth as a key indicator before deciding when to cut interest rates.
The survey was published on March 5, 2024.
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