Wages excluding bonuses have risen at their fastest pace in nearly 10 years, official figures show.

Pay rose by 3.1% in the three months to August, compared with a year ago, while inflation for the same period was 2.5%.

Last week, Bank of England chief economist Andy Haldane said he saw signs of a "new dawn" for wage growth.

The latest official data also showed unemployment fell by 47,000 to 1.36 million in the three months to August. The jobless rate remained at 4%.

David Freeman, the Office for National Statistic's (ONS) head of labour market, said: "People's regular monthly wage packets grew at their strongest rate in almost a decade, but, allowing for inflation, the growth was much more subdued.

"The number of people in work remained at a near-record high, while the unemployment rate was at its lowest since the mid-1970s."

The ONS figures showed the number of people in work was little changed at 32.39 million, down by just 5,000.

The average pace of wage growth was 4% before the global financial crisis.

Economists have been puzzled why wages have grown so slowly even as unemployment has fallen sharply.

Wages including bonuses rose at a pace of 2.7% in the three months to August.

In August, the Bank of England said that it expected total pay to be growing at a rate of 2.5% a year by the end of 2018, climbing to 3.5% by the end of 2020.

Public sector boost
However, Samuel Tombs, chief UK economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, said the latest wage growth rates were unlikely to be maintained.

"The recent pick-up in wage growth has been driven partly by the loosening of the public-sector pay cap for some workers," he said. "For instance, most NHS workers received a pay rise of at least 3% in July.

"But the government still is keeping a tight lid on pay rises in other departments, while this year's increase in NHS pay is the best in a three-year deal. Public sector pay growth, therefore, likely has reached a ceiling.

"The recent upturn in wage growth also has been flattered by the recent rebound in average hours."