Salary benchmark calculator
Most salary comparisons tell you how your pay comes out against the country. That is close to useless before a pay conversation, because nobody is paid the national average: they are paid for a job. This compares your salary with what the Office for National Statistics recorded for your own occupation, across 278 jobs and 17 million full-time positions, and then prices the gap in take-home pay rather than gross, because the gross figure is not the one that reaches your account. Free, no sign-up, and nothing you type leaves your browser.
Calculator
Salary benchmark calculator
278 occupations from the ONS earnings survey.
Used to compare like with like against full-time pay.
Pick your occupation above and this compares your pay with what ONS recorded for the same job across the UK, then prices the gap in take-home pay rather than gross. Nothing is sent anywhere; the comparison runs in your browser.
Why a percentile beats an average
An average salary for a job tells you almost nothing, because pay within an occupation is not symmetrical: a handful of very high earners drag the mean up, which is why the mean for most occupations sits well above the median. The percentile answers the question people actually have, which is not “what is typical” but “how many people in my job earn more than me”. Sitting at the 30th percentile means seventy per cent of full-time people doing your job are paid more, and that is a sentence you can take to a manager.
Ask for a published number, not a round one
The practical use of this is the figure above your current pay. Asking for £40,000 because it sounds right invites a negotiation about whether it sounds right. Asking for the 75th percentile that ONS published for your occupation moves the conversation onto evidence somebody else produced, and your employer can look it up. The calculator names the next published point above your pay for exactly that reason, rather than inventing a target.
What this cannot tell you
- It is national, not local. ONS does not publish a regional breakdown at four-digit occupation detail, so London pay sits in the same distribution as the rest of the UK. If you work in London, expect to be higher in the range than the national figures suggest is comfortable.
- It does not know your experience. An occupation spans everyone from the first week to the thirtieth year. A new starter near the 25th percentile may be paid correctly; someone with twenty years there is not.
- It is a year behind. The 2025 figures were collected in April 2025 and published that October. Pay has moved since, so treat the numbers as a floor rather than a ceiling.
- Some occupations are missing. Where the sample was too small, ONS suppresses the figures for disclosure control. Those jobs are left out here rather than filled with estimates.
How to use the salary benchmark calculator
- 1
Type your job and pick the occupation that matches; the list is the ONS classification, so pick the closest rather than the exact job title.
- 2
Enter your gross annual pay and your paid hours, which is what lets a part-time salary be compared fairly.
- 3
Read your percentile: how many people doing the same job full-time are paid more than you.
- 4
Take the next published percentile above you as the figure to ask for, and the after-tax column as what it is actually worth.
When should you use the salary benchmark calculator?
Use it before a pay review, a job offer or a resignation, when you need to know whether your pay is low, ordinary or high for the job you actually do rather than for the country.
Preparing for a pay review
A published percentile is evidence your employer can check, which is a different conversation from asking for a round number.
Weighing up a job offer
Compare the offer against the occupation rather than against your current pay, which may itself be low.
You suspect you are underpaid
Below the 25th percentile for your own occupation is the point most people would call underpaid, and the page names the figure.
Working part time
Your pay is scaled to a full-time week before comparing, then any gap is priced back at the hours you really work.
Where to go next
- Salary percentile calculatorTo where you sit among all UK taxpayers, not just your job.Open
- Pay rise calculatorTo what a specific rise leaves after tax.Open
- Salary comparison calculatorTo put two salaries side by side.Open
All 51 calculators share one tested engine, so a figure from the salary benchmark calculator agrees with every other page here. See the full calculator index or the pay and tax guides.
Common questions
How do I know if I am underpaid?
Compare your pay with what people in your own occupation earn, rather than with a national average. ONS publishes gross annual pay at ten percentile points for 278 occupations, so you can see whether you sit near the bottom, the middle or the top of your own job rather than of the workforce as a whole. Below the 25th percentile for your occupation is the point most people would call underpaid; around the median is ordinary.
What is a good salary for my job?
There is no single figure, which is why this page shows the whole published range rather than one number. The median for your occupation is the midpoint: half of full-time people in that job earn more. The 75th percentile is a defensible target if you are experienced, and the 90th is the top of what ONS records. Any of those is a better basis for a conversation than a round number you picked.
Where does the data come from?
The Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings, run by the Office for National Statistics. It samples around 1% of employee jobs from PAYE records, which makes it the largest and most reliable UK earnings dataset. These figures are the 2025 provisional release, published 2025-10-23, covering 17 million full-time jobs. It is Crown copyright, reused here under the Open Government Licence.
Why compare full-time pay when I work part time?
Because the survey's full-time table measures full-time jobs. Comparing a part-time salary with it directly would make almost anyone look underpaid. The calculator scales your pay to a 37.5-hour week first, compares that, then prices any gap back at the hours you actually work.
Is this the same as a salary survey from a recruiter?
No, and the difference matters. Recruiter surveys are drawn from the roles that recruiter handles, which skews towards jobs being advertised and towards the agency's own market. ASHE is drawn from PAYE records across the whole economy, including everyone who never changes job. It is less current but far less selective.
Earnings data: ONS, Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings, Table 14.7a, 2025 provisional, released 2025-10-23, from gov.uk / ONS. Crown copyright, reused under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Tax and National Insurance on the 2026/27 rates, checked 28 August 2026 by Hadi. This page shows what the published data says about pay for an occupation; it is not advice about your own position or your employer.