What do you think classes as a high earner?

[ThinkingABoutThinking221]

Just after ppls opinions on this.

Hear alot about the cost of living etc and the big divide between high and low earners......

What do you think would constitute as a high earner and why? Baring in mind everyone's personal circs......

All you saying £100k/£200k etc - are you saying that you believe anything below that is medium? LOL

Pretty much. I earn £70k but that's pretty average in my industry/sector.

Don't be dafttttttt. Your faux modesty is showing. 70k is a high wage

It's not faux modesty 😂 £70k is a decent wage nobody is saying it isn't, but I would not class it as a higher earner. That was the question, and that's my opinion.

£60-70k I would say is a high earner.

250k household.

I doubt anyone is thinking that it is simply high medium and low and there is a huge corridor for each one.

more a high earner is say 100k
medium earner 50 k
average earner 39k
low earner, 23k

and then a scale in between, it’s not 50 k is medium and 51k is high.

Before I started hanging out on MN I would have said 80k. Now I'd say 100k. I live in the rural SW though, we could live comfortably on a single wage if it was 100k!

'High earner' and 'well off' aren't the same thing, whether you are 'well off' depends on your savings, property/assets, inheritance etc as well as salary, and what your outgoings are. You aren't well off if you spend more than your salary and don't have savings, however high that salary is.

£100k plus.

more a high earner is say 100k
medium earner 50 k
average earner 39k
low earner, 23k

In london/SE medium would be more like £75k, average more like £50k

Depends on industry surely?

Is Your dh the only one who earns an income?

100K for a couple or family isn’t necessarily a high household income , but an individual earning 100K is still a high earner in my books. Especially if you live in the north.

I agree with pp that You might be a high earner ie. Earning 90K or whatever it is that puts you in the top ten percent, but you’re not well off due to all your outgoings, who else you have to support and how many are working in your household.

A couple earning 70K each are individually on less than a single person on 100k. I would count the latter as a high earner but not each of the couple.

However the couple will obviously have a higher household income and all other things being equal will be better off than the single.

And there are some people with what we may think of as tiny salaries that stay in a paid off house and have very little outgoings that are better off than the couple or single I used in my example.

In general, 100-150k+. However depends on where you live of course.

But surely medium should be at least close to average, not more than 25% higher?

Statistically speaking if you earn more than £77k you are in the top 10% earners in this country so you’re a high earner compared to the rest of the country. If you earn £39k, you’re a median earner. Everything else is just an opinion. High earner doesn’t mean someone is wealthy, I think people confuse the two.

No point in arguing in definitions, medium though is more mid point, where as average is where the most people sit. So the two can be very far apart. So as much as stats quote the same for both, if you take one end at say 500k and one at zero then medium would be 250k, so it depends on your data set.

I earn £85,000 (and have a very good public sector pension scheme) and I have viewed myself as a high earner since I got to about £65,000.

No point being coy or modest, no we don’t consider ourselves as affording private school (DH earns £50,000 but has a lot of indirect financial benefits with his role, and a pension even better than mine) but statistically we are way above average. We have an above average amount of disposable income, above average sized home, a lifestyle I know most cannot afford.

MN posters can try and piss on that as much as they want with their “oh darling anything under £250,000 is a peasant’s income!”, I however live in the real world and am grateful every day for what we have.

Where I live, I would say a household income over £150k for a family of four is where you would get more than comfortable and start being able to afford nice things.

I agree! Dp earns £90,000 within the private sector so not amazing pension and I earn £30,000 - £40,000 in public sector with a good pension. We feel we’re lucky. Nice house , nice holidays. We’re in the midlands so obviously not London / South West cost of living .

RudolphTheReindeer
Crikey, I was going to say anything over 45k!

Similar- was thinking 50 but really over 40!!!

It depends - if ds got £50k as a grad - I’d call that a high salary - put a couple of years on it and it start to look less toppy. For someone with over 10 years experience in a professional job - maybe £100k outside London, £150k London area.

Anything over £150k.

However, the real question to ask is not what is a high earner, but how much do you need to earn to be able to save and invest each month to grow real wealth over the long term

100k+ single income, 200k + joint

£250k