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?

Ok, Jack. I also know one person living off a joint income of £25000 with two kids in London. But they are lucky enough to live in an amazing two bedroom council flat with garden in Bloomsbury for £130 per week. I could NEVER EVER afford to live there.

Then Jackshit, I don't understand how you survive. Break it down if you can??

We're in the SE. DH is on just under 100k and I'm a SAHM (for the moment) and we are not rich, and sometimes we struggle.

(I mean in that area. You can get by on that income, but only if you were lucky enough to have support either from family or government).

Mintyy 1 in.10 is still not lots though.
when you think that 100k is top 5%

Also very interested to see your figures Jack.

Chunderella

I totally agree. We live in NW have mortgage paid off although just taken on number 2 mortgage, one minimum wage, 3 dc, although 2 are adult now.
We have never had cc costs so have saved all this money. We have friends who earn 100k and by the time they have paid their out goings have hardly any disposable income at all, whereas most of our income is disposable.

£100 big ones is beyond anything we could ever imagine.

We were lucky in that our modest terraced house was purchased 15 years ago when prices were within our reach, for £80K. Our mortgage payments are just £550pcm.

We only have one child as I am unable to have any more and financially it wouldn't be feasible anyway.

I work as well, but in the evenings, so we don't have childcare costs.

We don't take holidays abroad, just days out in the countryside etc. and we don't eat out hardly at all.

That's how we do it and although it sticks in the craw when high earners complain about being strapped for cash, I do think we are very lucky indeed to have what we do.

I find it so bad that the average person earns 26k but the average house price is now over £200k it just doesn't equate really

That has always been the case though. My father was a bus driver and we lived in a council house. Rent was cheap and my parents did have soem money to spend on us as kids. My friend's father was an architect and they lived in a very large house he had designed. They seemed to ahve little money left over. But they made choices about living in an expensive area and beautiful house. Choices that actually were not open to my parents.

I guess it's much more manageable when you bought years ago. I'm 30, DH is 32 and we rent. 2k a month. For a very average house.

I'm lying... I'm 31!

I think that's what it all boils down to Jack. If I could buy a house for £80000 I would find £100000 also to be an amazing income. But I can't. With a one bedroom ex-council flat going for around £300000 (not even that fabulous an area), I can only dream of owning a house one day.

You're probably right. £100K does seem a crazy amount, but rental prices in particular have rocketed.

Giraffe, did you put in your DH's gross or net salary? Because if your DH's gross salary is £100k, the net figure will be a lot lower. A £100k gross household income puts you in the 9th decile (with a higher income than c.85% of the population) on that ONS calculator.

Sorry IFS tool thingy..

The Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings link is pretty informative. If you have an unzip program you can download the data tables which give a breakdown of full and part time, men and women, by region, age group, I think by industry too.

They say median was £27k last time they released figures (December 2013)

The percentiles for gross annual pay for all employee jobs are:

10 6,824
20 11,251
25 13,262
30 15,080
40 18,443
50 21,905
60 25,986
70 30,801
75 33,717
80 37,010
90 47,913

With a mean of 27174

This is only employee earned income so will be skewed downwards as many with higher incomes will be self employed or have "unearned" income i.e. income from investments, buy to lets etc. Still quite interesting when working out where your job sits!

It's not just area and when you bought your home, but also family size and childcare as well. We have a single wage of 100k (gross) and are very comfortable on it, but we only have one dc. Bought a 2 bed flat last year, don't run a car as we live near the tube. No childcare costs as I'm a sahm.

I come from quite a poor background myself (council estate) so most of my schoolfriends are on salaries of under £25k. Lots of them are still in council housing, of which there is quite a lot in central London (albeit with waiting lists to match). But circumstances like that make life on a low wage more manageable, especially as they are often living close to family who help out with childcare.

anyone with 100K is rich they have choices the fact that they spend nearly all of it on nurseries mortgage is because of choices; they could easily choose differently and have plenty of money left over; those on less than 20k do not have those choices, A 300k house is easily affordable on 100k if you are on 20k owning a home is a pipe dream

before Dh and DD I was earning close to that, it enabled me to pay off mortgage go om holidays etc etc, now I work PT so does DH we have just over median income and it is fine though mortgage tiny because of previous situation, I consider ourselves well off though more asset than cash rich

in reality if you work in london you can choose to commute from further afield where property is cheaper etc, earning over 50K puts you in richest 10% of one of the richest countries in the world

I guess it depends how you define rich being cynical it is normally people whoearn 10-20% more than you

more objectively I would say if you have a secure roof over your head do not count pennies in the supermarket have a car and savings

No. Anyone on 100k is not rich.

And no,100k doesn't mean you can easily get a mortgage. It's all about the deposit.

The problem with these discussions is that if you've got ten times the income of another person and you start to say to them 'of course that doesn't mean we're rich/comfortably off/have disposable income' it comes across a bit as though you're saying 'well, 50k might be wealthy to you, but I'm much more discerning than you, and that's simply not enough for me, I really deserve a better life than that, that's why I need 500k'.

I do realise that that is not how people mean to come across, and those are exaggerated figures, but it can come across a bit like that sometimes.

Teacup: There is NO such thing as a £300000 house. That's my point.

We are a lot higher on that scale than I would have expected too.

London.
School fees are £25k.
Nanny is 20k
Mortgage is 20k.
All after tax.

Yes they are lifestyle choices we have made, but I am not swanning about buying Mulberry handbags or driving a Chelsea tractor or buying expensive makeup and clothes. Hell I don't even go to Starbucks any more.

There are loads of 300K 3 bedroom flats within easy commuting distance of Central London though Mellow.

Well if you earn 100k you have more chance of saving a good deposit th a n someone on 20 or less.

We are east Midlands, dp earns 37k im a sahm. We dont struggle rent in a fairly nice area (still pretty cheap!) In this area dps wage is very good. Many couples we know don't earn as much between them.