LONDON, Oct 29 (Reuters) - The rate of pay growth in Britain rose for the first in almost a year in the three months to September, a study of pay deals by Incomes Data Services showed on Thursday.
Based on 66 wage settlements covering 1.23 million workers in the public and private sectors, the survey showed the median pay rise over the period was 2.0 percent.
This was up from 1.0 percent in the three months to August and ends an unbroken string of declines in average pay deals since November last year, suggesting the downward pressure on wages may have troughed after Britain's longest recession in more than 50 years.
"Outside of those sectors that have been hardest hit by the recession, and where pay has been frozem, 2 percent is pretty much the floor for pay increase," said Ken Mulkearn, editor of the IDS Pay Report.
However, he added that pay growth in the public sector -- currently leading the pack at 2.5 percent -- was likely to be restrained in the coming year, meaning private sector pay growth could pull ahead once more.
IDS is owned by Sweet & Maxwell, a division of Thomson Reuters which provides data for legal and professional services markets in Britain and Ireland. (Reporting by Christina Fincher; editing by Stephen Nisbet)