The average salary in the UK?

[Banoffeepiefan]

It struck me that I have no idea what this is, in terms of (if I'm right with this) the modal average - the mean, I think, is about £26,000, but that is not a good reflection on what most people or families live on. Are there any stats to show what this is across the UK?

Interested because I'm job hunting at the moment, trying to plan ahead, and also because of the surge of threads on Mumsnet about how many people are struggling, and that number who are struggling seems to be climbling steadily this last few years whether it's to buy a house or to buy food. I wonder is the average (whatever it might be) enough to be comfortable on, and are the people who are really struggling (apart from crises such as health or debt etc) those who earn significantly less?

The average of 26k isnt that meaningful. It is misleading as it is distorted by comparatively few ultra high earners. Well more than half of people earn less 26k.

For example in a company 9 people are paid 15k and one person is paid 150k. The average salary is 28, 000 even tbough that doesn't correspond to what any single employee earns.

career-advice.monster.co.uk/salary-benefits/pay-salary-advice/uk-average-salary-graphs/article.aspx

And some more graphs, by sector, gender etc.

26 is the mode not the mean. Ignore my previous post was talking out my arse!

There are so many factors involved anyway, a person earning £26k with no child care to pay and low rent is in a better position than someone on £35k who pays out £800 a month in child care and has a high rent too.

Try this website. I put South Yorkshire in as that is where I live.

26 is the median salary, not the mode. But a lot of the people with children on lower earnings are currently topped up by in work benefits - so looking at "household income" is perhaps more useful.

Oh so im

Oh so I was right first time? 26k is the median? Okay. I wasn't talking crap for once.

Compos, does this help.? My apologies if I am patronising....

Mode - the thing that happens most often (the salary that the most people get)

Mean - the average of a set of things (add up a set of people's salary and divide the result by the number of people)

So the first will tell you that most people earn between, say, £10K and £20K and a couple of people earn, say, £1.5Million

The second will tell you that is you take them all into account the average salary is just of £26K.

No, the median is the number in the middle.

Take those people, put their salaries in order and pick the one in the middle.

Less than 15 where I am.

The Office for National Statistics website has huge amounts of information on income levels, salaries, household spending etc. Whether someone in receipt of an average household income is 'struggling' or not is totally dependent on their location, spending priorities and lifestyle expectations.

Oh, I don't know, Dana must know what Britain Eans....

OMG - eans is in the urban dictionary - hold up, simmer down, cool off!!

Nomana...not patronising at all! Very helpful. How I got a gcse in maths is a source of constant wonder to me!

Surely that link is not right? I put our figures in and it said we were in the top 5% of society! We only have a household income of about 100k which, while I realise is higher than a lot of people, and we are very lucky, etc etc, surely it isn't in the top 5%.

Only! I Am manager in healthcare and get 50% less than sister who works for company that sells flowers. Salary does not show what section of society you are in or level of education you have reached or effirt you have put in

Only on mumsnet could someone think an income of 100 grand was normal

Or say we only have

musetta agree

I would say top 5% sounds about right! That is 1 in 20. So if I look round, the only people at my workplace likely to be earning enough to put them into that bracket (assuming a similarly earning partner) are the head teacher and deputy head. So 2 people in a workforce of 50-60- less than 1 in 20. At a supermarket, only the managers and above would be earning enough (again with a similarly earning partner), 1 manager to 20 staff sounds about right. And so on.

Haha