From the IFS and my interpretation:
"Staff costs account for almost half of departmental day-to-day spending.."
"At this Spending Review, departments’ day-to-day budgets are set to grow by an average of 1.2% per year in real terms between 2025–26 and 2028–29."
Assume then that non-wage costs are rising evenly, then 1.2/2=0.6%pa is "available" for real wage rises.
"The OBR’s March 2025 forecast suggests that total employment is set to grow by an average of 0.6% each year over the same period: one scenario would be for public sector employment to grow in line with this average..."
Thus real wages can grow at 1.2/2 -0.6= 0.
"This would keep real-terms pay roughly constant (..if inflation is 2.0% per year) ). But these pay awards would be below the OBR’s forecast for average annual economy-wide earnings growth over this period (2.2% in cash terms) and below the pay awards recently announced for 2025–26 (which were around 4% on average). "
