Meanwhile inflation, published on Tuesday, is expected to have held steady at 3pc in November.

As a result, the pressure on real pay is easing and economists hope the UK has now turned a corner.

“It is entirely possible this might be the start of a slight upward leg with wages,” said Peter Dixon, economist at Commerzbank.

“We are approaching the point at which the pool of available labour is beginning to become rather small, and I think there is a sense many companies are finding retention problems. Accordingly they are going to have to nudge up wage offerings in order to ensure they can maintain their staff, which is important particularly in skills and services-oriented economy.”

He believes wage growth should overtake inflation in mid-2018.

Victoria Clarke, economist at Investec, thinks uncertainty over Brexit has been holding back pay as employers are cautious on costs while staff are nervous about asking for rises. But as inflation fades, workers should feel better off anyway. “Our view is that inflation starts to moderate through 2018,” she said. “So you’ve got less of a cash squeeze going on and you might see a bit of a pickup in nominal pay growth as well, so things are getting a bit easier for households.”