Average Salaries And The Data Protection Act

Average salaries are always worked out differently. At school I was taught when to use the median, the mean and the mode however it seems that some articles always use the mean.

For example The National Office of Statistics UK UK uses the median value to calculate the average wage. Unfortunately articles such as this one by the Evening Standard newspaper use the mean.

Using the mean for something like salaries means that the average wage looks higher than it actually is because extreme values are taken into account. The current average salary for a permanent Java Developer in London is approx. £45,000. This is a mean value as most adverts advertise either much below this value i.e. £25,000 - £30,000 or above this value i.e. £60,000+. The finiancial industry pays the highest salaries while other industry sectors such as telecoms pay below this.

Today I informed a recruitment consultant that he had breached the Data Protection Act 1998 in an email by sharing information about other people with me, and my information with other people. His response was to ring me up and shout at me down the phone saying I was hassling him. I have now contacted the Data Controller of the company and will see what occurs from there. My final resort is to report the company to the Information Commissioner.

Technorati Tags: average, salary, law