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.

North West.

Low - under £20k
medium £20-40k
High-40k plus

As PP say it really depends what your DH does. If he works in retail or hospitality that is a very good wage but if he works in financial services & related areas it isn't unless there is a prospect of a large bonus.

Low - under 20k
Medium 20-35k
high - 35k and above

In London, for a professional

Low - under £30,000

Medium - £31,000 to £100,000

High - £101,000 +

Low - national minimum wage, zero contract hours, no company benefits, no paid holiday, no extras

Medium - I think the UK average used to be £26k and up to £40k, so I would add employers that provide other benefits like pension contributions, paid holiday, healthcare, reduced services, share save etc

High - £41k plus and employers that provide company benefits

Your partner can put their job title into a search engine and find out an estimated salary

However, some company benefits are worth alot, so it is worth taking these into account eg pension contributions, healthcare

You also have to take into account things like commute to work, does company allow working from home, flexible working etc

You may choose to do a job that you love, rather than a job that pays a lot
A job is not always about the salary

Same salary range for self employed

if you want actual data instead of individual experiences:

www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/earningsandworkinghours/bulletins/annualsurveyofhoursandearnings/2016provisionalresults#regional-earnings

or this is a few years old but breaks it down into smaller regions very clearly
www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2011/nov/24/wages-britain-ashe-mapped

I heard someone talking about a local chap recently and how he earned £50k a year. He was then referred to as a "Blackpool millionaire" so, clearly, 50k is an awful lot up here

I'd say that most places in the U.K. Outside of London that medium would be a comfortable mortgage on a 3 bed house between 2 salaries, say 3 times the joint income or thereabouts. For us in the Midlands that's £35k per adult/ £70k per household.

Id think that a high salary is £70k+++ and low is up to early twenties. I've been happy with £1k per year of age so doing well if you're getting more than that

South yorks, low sub 24k per household, med up to £90k, high plus that, but for a 2 income family, so £45k each or 80k plus 10k iyswim

I'm in the South East and in general I'd say:

Low - under 20k
Medium 20-35k
high - 35k+

I do have a friend who got a £15k salary a couple of years after graduating and was really excited and happy with that salary. My husband and I started on just over £20k when we graduated and my family were really impressed - I do come from a low income family though.

Meanwhile the company/industry we are in is more like this:

Low - Less than 40k
Medium - 40k - 80k
High - 80k+

40% higher rate tax is collected on income of just under £43k, which kicks in the cover the top 10% income bracket in the UK. I would tend to benchmark against that.

Aberdeen which is heavily Oil and Gas Industry

Low would be under 40k

Medium 40 - 80k

High 80 +

For an individual (not a household) in NI:
Low- 10k
Medium- 20k plus
High- 35k plus

That said, the cost of living is quite low here, and nobody really needs to pay school fees as we have grammars.

Edinburgh
Low - up to £25k
Medium - £26 - £75k
High - £76+

Low:under 40k
Medium: 40 -100k
High - 100k plus.
A 4 bedroom modest house is 700k plus round here, south east.

EnormousTiger many women are not financially ambitious and there is nothing wrong with relying on your husband for financial support if that is an agreement you have made.

I'm confused about these perceptions of salaries, especially in London. Most people do not earn more than £30k so this thread has demonstrated clearly the "bubbles" that people live in. The actual figures show a very different story.

Isn't it less about high and low salary and more about how salary/income balances against expenditure? Salaries tend to be higher in South East but then so are living costs. I would expect my children's peers salary average to be lower than our peers because of experience.

Low is when you need to top up with benefits, when you can't afford to save anything, when you haven't got three months salary put away somewhere to tide you over, if necessary. Low in UK is very rich compared to some other countries. Iceland carrier bags on the bus. Guess under about 30K for a family of four.

Medium is feeling OK about money most of time. Not needing benefit top ups. Being able to run a car. Not being reliant on credit cards. Having enough for a holiday. Being able to go out for a meal sometimes. Not worrying about unpaid bills. Cheap champagne not cava. Gym membership. Tesco online. Guess 30K -75K for family of four.

High income is a cleaner, several holidays in nice places, Nyetimber not champagne. Bills -do we get bills? Cars as birthday presents for children, private schooling, private healthcare. Golf club membership. Cloth napkins. Ocado deliveries. Guess above 75K.

High income is a cleaner, several holidays in nice places, Nyetimber not champagne. Bills -do we get bills? Cars as birthday presents for children, private schooling, private healthcare. Golf club membership. Cloth napkins. Ocado deliveries. Guess above 75K.

But surely all that would cost far, far more than 75k?

Except for the cloth napkins and Ocado, which wouldn't cost all that much

Maybe, I said a guess! Day prep at about 12k a year with scholarship and/or bursary for two. Cleaner 1, 500 pa. Cars not at same time as prep school fees. Holidays -Neilsons 4.5K, Skiing 3.5K. Private healthcare as part of benefits package. No idea about golf but private health club for both spouses 10K. That adds up to around 21.5K. Assuming house was mainly paid for as wedding gift from in laws and bonus for a couple of years. There should be plenty of money on 75K -especially if there is a second salary too.

Considering private schooling is 18k a year..for a family of 2 children that's 36k, so when you consider 40% tax, 75k would literally just cover school fees. We struggle with school fees on 175k income

High income is a cleaner, several holidays in nice places, Nyetimber not champagne. Bills -do we get bills? Cars as birthday presents for children, private schooling, private healthcare. Golf club membership. Cloth napkins. Ocado deliveries. Guess above 75K.

Our joint income is £75k (maybe more depending on bonus') and there's no way we could afford private schooling. Luckily we live in a nice area with great schools. We also have one holiday a year and maybe a couple of weekends away (pre baby) definitely not several holidays.

It is always interesting seeing what people spend - school fees or whatever.

£75k is about £51k a year net assuming no student loans so it would not be easy paying two sets of school fees (I have a sibling who does that as they put off children to almost age 40 and spent almost 2 decades paying off mortgage when other people might have been out enjoying themselves! So it is doable if private school if your priority on that kind of income but people have all kinds of priorities.

I pay school fees which are about £30k a year (2 children so about £15k each). Gym is quite expensive - just gone up as two of the children at school reached a certain age and I won't carry on with it in 2018. Holidays - I choose to pay for 6 or 7 of us twice a year so that's expensive but I could easily manage without that. Cleaner comes 3 times a week although I do loads too.

My main issue on threads like this is making sure people are aware of two things:-

1. A couple who don't get child benefit or tax credits and have a high repayment mortgage and £20k a year childcare costs and work full time may have less money than a couple topped up with state benefits who may not work full time. It's a huge difficulty for the state - how to make full time work pay. Instead people whose rent is paid by full time working mothers through housing benefit etc just look at gross salary figures and think wow that lady on £25k must be really rich - they seem to assume she doesn't pay any tax or national insurance contributions, has no student loan repayments and no childcare costs or rent to pay.

1. That people think someone on a high income keeps most of that higher income whereas tax/NI is 42%, 47% and even an effective rate over 60% and no tax free allowance even at higher levels.

None of this of course means those of us who earn a lot are doing badly or need any sympathy. We are lucky as hell and just keep keeping on - I've worked full time for 30 years without a break even for babies. That is not a choice everyone would make.

(I wish more teenage girls would get out of their low paid head bubble and realise what many women earn in higher paid jobs in London though... if anyone is in a bubble it is those who are never exposed to women and careers where women earn a lot. I think a lot of us who earn a lot are aware of what lower earners earn. My son is a postman so obviously I know. )

A salary of £75k wouldn't be the sort of job where bonuses paid for houses!

We earn more than that, can't afford private schools, don't ski and most certainly are aware of bills.

Interestingly the other person on this thread in my location has said same as me.
Low < £25k (i.e. Below the uk average)
Medium 25-75k
High over 75k

Dh and I are both "medium" but quite far apart - due to our sectors not our roles. In my area a senior director would get 50-60k with only maybe a handful of people in London getting more than that in the entire sector.