UK salary percentile
See where your salary sits nationally. Enter a figure to see what share of people earn less, and whether it puts you in the top slice of UK earners.
Reading the distribution
A percentile answers a simple question: what fraction of people earn less than you. Sit at the 50th percentile and you are exactly in the middle, on the median income. Sit at the 90th and nine in ten people earn less, which is the same as being in the top 10%. The tool takes your figure and finds where it falls between the published reference points, then reads off the percentile.
The shape of UK income matters as much as your position on it. Most people are clustered fairly close together in the middle, so a modest pay rise there moves you up several percentiles. Near the top the gaps widen sharply: the distance in pounds between the 90th and 99th percentile dwarfs everything below. That is why a comfortable top-10% salary can still feel a long way from the very top, and why the average income sits well above the median.
Worked example
Take a £45,000 income. On these reference points it lands around the 81th percentile, so it is higher than roughly 81% of adults and places you in about the top 19%. Push the figure up towards £70,000 and you approach the top 5%; the numbers climb steeply once you pass the 90th percentile.
Common questions
What percentile is my salary?
Your percentile is the share of people who earn less than you. Enter your income and the tool places it against published percentile points for individual pre-tax income. Earning more than 80% of people, for instance, puts you at the 80th percentile, or the top 20%.
What is the median UK income?
The median is the middle point, where half earn more and half earn less. In this dataset it sits around £28,900 for individual income. The median matters more than the average, because a small number of very high earners drags the average well above what most people actually get.
Is this household or individual income?
These reference points are for individual income before tax, not household income. Two average earners in one home would each be judged separately here. Household measures look very different, because they combine incomes and adjust for how many people the money supports.
Why does a high salary still not feel high?
Because the top of the distribution stretches a long way. The jump from the 90th to the 99th percentile is huge in pounds, so someone comfortably in the top 10% can still be far below the people at the very top. Being above average is common; being near the peak is rare and costly to reach.
How accurate are these figures?
They are a guide, not a precise ranking. The percentile points are illustrative and should be refreshed from the latest ONS and HMRC releases, which lag by a year or two and are revised. Use the result to get a sense of where you stand, not as an exact national position.