What would you consider a "high", "medium" and " low" salary for where you live?

[SnowyPaws]

DH has just been offered a new job- great! I think it's a good offer he doesn't seem as impressed. He is more driven than money by me though. Would be interested to know other people's perceptions of salaries.

Actually I don't think it is a stupid question and I think the basic question What is high/medium/low income, profession, training etc are irrelevant to the basic question. People still need money to live on and even doing a completely unskilled job should be able to have a decent life

It is a stupid question.

So you want to know what someone considers low because people should still be able to have some kind of life?

Well that varies if you have one zero dependents and a partner or if you have no partner and three dependants.

It varies based on are you living Ina. Secure council tenancy in Bolton, or are you private renting in London.

OP is purely asking about salary levels though - not about how how you cope with them.

I think people are overcomplicating the question!

frumps

Sure, but what does the OP mean with 'high' or 'low'?

Is high simply being really comfortable but not rich (how I interpreted it) and low is barely making ends meet or...?

If you want some actual information about earnings then have a look here.

I'm in West Yorkshire and feel well off on my DHs 52k salary

Northern Ireland

Low-minimum wage
Medium-20k
High-over 25k

Wages are shite here.

I'm in Edinburgh and would consider low to be under £20k, medium £25-40k and high probably above £50K.

I guess if I was on minimum wage and struggling with kids I'd consider the thresholds to be slightly different. DH and I both earn £50k and live comfortably with one child and another on the way in a nice suburb. We'd struggle if we earned half that but others would do well depending on lifestyle.

These sorts of threads always reveal how separated from the average person in the UK people on here are, if there are people who think salaries of £40k are 'low'

People are answering by reference to the area they live in, not the UK average. £40k would be a low salary where I live because someone earning that would struggle to afford housing costs (even to rent a 1 bed flat- they certainly couldn't buy a flat). That obviously doesn't mean it's a low salary compared to the national average.

But whether her DH has been offered a good salary is entirely dependent on what the job is and his qualifications and experience.

Where I live £25k is a much higher than average salary (the average income is only about £16k in this city according to official statistics) but I would be seriously unimpressed if my employer had wanted to offer me that as a salary for my job because it's so far below the going rate for what I do (which reflects the skills, qualifications and experience required). The average local salary makes no difference to my determination of whether it's a decent salary offer.

Everything depends on who you mix with. Dh and I both earn six figures and a decade ago when we both earned about £40k I would have thought that was "rich". Now we mix with families in the same situation and so it seems normal to us. Those earning £300k+ now seem "rich".

We mix with too many hospital consultants who are raking it in.

Im rural East Staffordshire.

Low under £18k
Mid under £25k
High over £25k

You can buy a 3 bed house with large gardens, garage and driveway for circa £120k here so the wages are artificially low in this area.

The most expensive area in the country (City of London) the median pay is £50k a year. London as a whole has a median pay of £35k. I think it's a bit of a stretch to argue that over 50% of full time workers are employed on low salaries. Though, quite how you'd define low I don't know (bottom 20%, 30%?) Mean salaries are distorted by the very high earners, particularly in London.

I think it depends on what you do and how old you are....how many dependants.

I'm 30. Have 3 kids.

I personally would feel 22k and under is low.

23k-27k ok

28k plus good.

45 plus high.

I live in the north east, and full time I fit the good category. I work part time and still fit the good category.

I feel I have worked hard for all I have, but don't judge others. I have no doubts others can live well on less, just have to get priorities straight.

The OP's question really doesn't depend on who they mix with or local salary levels.

If her DH has been offered a salary of £25k the only way to determine whether he should be impressed or not is to compare it to the going rate for the job he does. It might be a good salary if he works in retail but it's not a good salary if he's a head teacher.

We live in south Norfolk. Quite rural.

Low wage is about £15k here.
I'd consider medium wage about 18-25ish
High here would be anything over about 28 I think. Seriously.

If you're prepared to travel to the nearest big town (30 miles away) or to London on the train (2 hours away) obviously salaries are very different but then so is the quality and pace of life.

Low is nmw
Medium 18k plus
High is 25k plus

This is based on admin in the south east (not London).

Yeh I'm not sure why people are talking about salaries relative to their personal circumstances. You can hardly go for a job and say you want to be paid more because you've got kids.

Sure, but what does the OP mean with 'high' or 'low'?

Exactly - that's her question - what salary figure would we individually consider to be 'high'?

And the answer is meaningless because as showed by this thread you judge yourself in comparison with those you consider your peers.

Where I live (wages below national average) I would count below 20K as low, 20 to 35K as medium, above 35K as high. So that's my off-the-cuff guess before googling.

Now I've googled: ONS stats for 2015. Median weekly wage was £27600 in 2015.

But it's also interesting to look at what the shape of the distribution is. From the report "In April 2015 the bottom 10% of full-time employees earned less than £297 per week. At the other end of the distribution, the top 10% of full-time employees earned more than £1,035. Since 1997, earnings at the 90th percentile have remained consistently at around 3.5 times earnings at the 10th percentile". So that's approximate 15.5K or below to put you in the lowest 10% of earners, compared to approx 54K to put you in the top 10% of earners.

So I guess it's what you mean by "high, medium and low" - whether you're thinking in terms of thirds of the population or high/low = ten percent outliers. I see a lot of people on this thread have 60K as their "high earner" cut-off, which is actually less than 10% of the population, and I'd be interested to know whether you realised this, or whether it was relative to where you live (and you live in the SE which will have a higher percentage of people on high incomes).

frumps

No, I mean...

For me personally 'high' means being very comfortable. But not 'rich'. If the OP thinks 'high' means rich then my answer would be different.

Or what means 'low'? Barely surviving? Going to the food bank? Or just needing to be conservative to stay afloat?

I guess the (different) question of how comfortable you'd be on a salary would depend on whether you gave children (and other factors). Just as you can't tell how much people might 'need' to get by without knowing if they have housing costs or defendants etc.

But any question about perceptions of salaries must always be in relation to the actual job. If it was a role as an apprentice bricklayer the renumeration expectations would (quite rightly) be radically different to those for a role as vice chancellor of the local university.

It's not even about being more motivated by money or not. A salary offer may be distinctly unimpressive. DH was offered a crappy salary for his first job and its crappiness was entirely in relation to the going rate in the sector for someone with his qualifications not the actual figure. The first job I was offered was at a really generous salary relative to my experience and qualifications at the time.

Another factor to add into the mix is expectations and spending patterns.

Some people on a relatively high income will consider themselves to be 'skint and never have anything nice' because they consider lots of optional purchases to be essential or shop in an expensive way - eg consider a normal basic shop to be organic everything from Waitrose without restricting what they buy, without considering that similar food could be bought from cheaper supermarkets for much much less per month.

Others perhaps on lower incomes will be much more careful with their money, use discount coupons, shop around etc or be much more appreciative about what is a treat and what is a basic expenditure. Eg a coffee from a coffee shop is a treat, not a normal basic expenditure.

I would say
Low is under 25k
Medium 25-100
High 100k - 250k
Very high 250k +