UK salary percentile calculator
Where does your income actually rank? Using HMRC's own distribution of taxpayer incomes (Survey of Personal Incomes 2023/24, the latest published, updated April 2026): the median UK taxpayer earns £29,700 before tax, the top 10% starts at £67,400, the top 5% at £93,600, and the top 1% at £207,000. Most people place themselves far closer to the middle than they are, a £50,000 salary is already inside the top quarter. Enter any income below for your exact percentile from all 99 published points, then see what that income keeps after tax.
You earn more than about 61% of UK taxpayers, the top 39%.
That is £5,300 above the taxpayer median of £29,700. See the take-home →
The UK income ladder
| Rank | Income before tax | |
|---|---|---|
| Top 1% | £207,000 | |
| Top 2% | £145,000 | |
| Top 5% | £93,600 | |
| Top 10% | £67,400 | |
| Top 25% | £45,000 | |
| Median (top 50%) | £29,700 | ✓ you are here or above |
| Bottom 25% | £20,800 | ✓ you are here or above |
HMRC Survey of Personal Incomes 2023/24 (latest published, updated April 2026), individual total income before tax, UK income tax payers only. People earning under the personal allowance pay no income tax and are not counted, so ranks against all adults would be higher.
What counts as a good salary in the UK?
By the only objective yardstick, the distribution itself, anything above £29,700 out-earns half of UK taxpayers, £45,000 beats three-quarters, and £67,400 puts you in the top tenth. Context moves the goalposts: London pay runs well above the national distribution, and a household with two median earners out-earns most single high earners. The more useful question is usually take-home, the main calculator converts any of these benchmarks into monthly money, and the statistics tables show the tax rates at each rung.
Why “average salary” and “median” disagree
The mean is dragged upwards by the very top of the distribution, the top 1% start at £207,000 and continue far beyond, so the “average” income sits well above what the typical person earns. The median (£29,700here) is the honest middle: half of taxpayers above, half below. Note this data counts taxpayers, millions of adults earning under the £12,570 personal allowance pay no income tax and are outside it, so against all adults every rank here is an underestimate of how well an income really places.
Source: HMRC percentile points, SPI 2023/24, checked 2026-08-29. Individual total income before tax.