UK Salary Percentile Calculator: Are You in the Top 10%?

In the age of increasingly accessible data and more sophisticated tools, it’s become easier to understand how we stack up financially. One of the ways to measure our relative economic standing is by examining where our income falls in relation to your peers.

Use this calculator to determine how your pre-tax salary (or gross income) compares against the rest of the UK. If you want to check your percentile on an after-tax basis, please try our After-Tax Income Percentile Calculator.

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Usage Guide

The income percentile calculator is built with a few different fields that you can fill out:

1. Your annual pre-tax (or gross) income: This is the only mandatory field.
2. Age (Optional): If you choose to fill it in, you’ll be able to see how your income compares to others in your age group across the UK.
3. Region (Optional): This optional field lets you select your location from a drop-down menu. Choosing your region allows you to see how your income measures against others in your geographic location.
4. Industry (Optional): This field allows you to input your professional sector, providing an industry-specific income comparison. Like the Region field, this is also selected through a drop-down menu and is optional.

Outputs

The calculator takes the information you provide and compares it against the statistics from two different agencies:

1. ONS: The Office for National Statistics (ONS) regularly updates the data for income through the UK and we use this as our primary data source.
2. HMRC: The UK government’s HM Revenue & Customs reports income percentile data based on tax filings. The data is typically a bit dated, so it could be as old as 2 years.

If you do spot errors, please do not hesitate to reach out to me or add a few points in the comments section below. Note that there will likely be some differences in the results generated by the two sources. Of course the most obvious is the time aspect, but the second is also that due to the ONS data being the most current, there will be some volatility in the results.

The calculator shows how your salary compares against the rest of the employed people in the UK. The result is shown in percentile format. A chart also helpfully shows the UK salary distribution and where you stack up on that.

There are a wealth of additional statistics that are shown if you enter the optional data points related to Age, Region, and your Industry.

The main parameters shown are the Mean (the average) and the Median. We would have loved to show more data points, but at this point, this is what is reported by the ONS.

Recall that the median is the number which slices the reporting population in half. It means that half the people earn less than the median and half the people earn more than median.

A table with the mean and the medians for income for the following combinations of categories is shown for:

• The entire UK
• Your specific age group in the UK.
• Your industry in the UK (Industry is based on SIC07).
• Your specific region within the UK (region is based on NUTS1).
• Your industry within your region in the UK

If you’re more comfortable thinking in terms of hourly wages, please use the Yearly Salary to Hourly Wage calculator to convert these annual figures in to an hourly wage.

UK Salary Percentiles

The table below shows the salary percentiles in the UK as per the latest data available. It compiles the data from both sources – ONS and HMRC. It also shows the after-tax UK income percentiles (see after-tax income percentile calculator).

For a chart of the same data, please see the chart generated by the calculator above.

The Power of Insight

The purpose of our UK Income Percentile Calculator isn’t to induce competition or discontent. Instead, it aims to provide a clear and comprehensive understanding of your economic standing relative to others. Whether you’re planning a career move, contemplating relocation, or merely curious about where you stand, this tool can provide valuable insights to inform your decision-making.

It will help you answer questions like:

1. What percentage of earners am I in the UK?
2. What is the average salary in the UK?
3. What is a good salary in the UK?
4. What is the average salary for a 25 year old in the UK?
5. What is the average salary in the West Midlands for a 35 year old?
6. What is the average salary in Public Administration in London?
7. What is the median and average salary in London? The calculator doesn’t have the data to decipher the London salary percentile, but these other data points should give you a reasonable answer nevertheless.

Remember to look at both the average and median salary points as these are both relevant. Often the average (the mean) is skewed by a few highly paid individuals, so the median data point would be more relevant.

It’s essential to remember that income is just one facet of our financial wellbeing. So while this calculator provides useful information, it should be used as part of a holistic approach to understanding your financial situation. It’s also worth noting that the data used is drawn from the ONS and is therefore both reliable and up-to-date.

One final point to bring up here is that income taxes are one of the largest hits to our income and sadly there is no escaping paying the tax man. If you’re curious how the country stacks up on an after income tax basis, we’ve got an after-tax income percentile calculator for that. We built a separate calculator there as incorporating that information here would simply be too unwieldly.

Before You Go…

If you like calculators like this, please do check out our Household Net Worth Percentile Calculator for the UK. We’ve got another similar one in the Average Savings Percentile Calculator for the UK.

For additional income statistics, check out the article on income statistics by postcode.

Our team has worked hard to bring you these calculators, and in fact every article on this site. Please do take a moment to browse and see if any of them can help improve your financial well-being.

If you spot any errors, please do let us know in the comments or by email so we can fix them right away.

If you have specific numbers in mind, we’ve covered off many different salary levels in greater detail in our articles listed below:

1. What is a good salary in London?
2. Is £75k a Good Salary in the UK?
3. Is £60k a Good Salary in the UK?
4. Is £40k a Good Salary in the UK?
5. What is the top 1% income the UK?

FAQs