In January 2025, the top one percent of earners in the United Kingdom received an average pay of 15,882 British pounds per month, compared with the bottom 10 percent of earners who earned 813 pounds a month.

In 2024, the average annual full-time earnings for the top ten percent of earners in the United Kingdom was 72,150 British pounds, compared with 22,763 for the bottom ten percent of earners.

In 2022 the top one percent of earners in the United Kingdom accounted for around 10.2 percent of the overall national income of the UK. The share of national income earned by the top one percent increased from 6.8 percent in 1980 to a peak of 14.8 percent in 2007.

In the 3 years to March 2021, black households were most likely out of all ethnic groups to have a weekly income of under £600.

In 2021/22 approximately 9.63 million taxpayers in the United Kingdom earned between 20,000 and 29,999 British pounds in this tax year, the most of any income level, while approximately 25,000 taxpayers in the UK earned over one million pounds.

In 2023, households in the top decile in the United Kingdom paid, on average, 49,392 British pounds in income tax, compared with the lowest income decile which paid around 1,907 pounds per year.

In 2024 men aged between 50 and 59 were the highest full-time earners in the United Kingdom among different gender and age groups, with men of different ages consistently earning more than women.

FOCUSON**LONDON**2010:**INCOME**AND**SPENDING**AT**HOME**

Household income in London far exceeds that of any other region in the UK. At £900 per week, London’s gross weekly household income is 15 per cent higher than the next highest region. Despite this, the costs to each household are also higher in the capital. Londoners pay a greater amount of their income in tax and national insurance than the UK average as well as footing a higher bill for housing and everyday necessities. All of which leaves London households less well off than the headline figures suggest.

This chapter, authored by Richard Walker in the GLA Intelligence Unit, begins with an analysis of income at both individual and household level, before discussing the distribution and sources of income. This is followed by a look at wealth and borrowing and finally, focuses on expenditure including an insight to the cost of housing in London, compared with other regions in the UK.

See other reports from this Focus on London series.

REPORT:

To view the report online click on the image below. Income and Spending Report PDF

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PRESENTATION:

This interactive presentation finds the answer to the question, who really is better off, an average London or UK household? This analysis takes into account available data from all types of income and expenditure. Click on the link to access.

PREZI

The Prezi in plain text version

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This interactive chart shows some key borough level income and expenditure data. This chart helps show the relationships between five datasets. Users can rank each of the indicators in turn.

Borough rankings Tableau Chart

MAP:

These interactive borough maps help to geographically present a range of income and expenditure data within London.

Interactive Maps - Instant Atlas

DATA:

All the data contained within the Income and Spending at Home report as well as the data used to create the charts and maps can be accessed in this spreadsheet.

Report data

FACTS:

Some interesting facts from the data…

● Five boroughs with the highest median gross weekly pay per person in 2009:

-1. Kensington & Chelsea - £809

-2. City of London - £767

-3. Westminster - £675

-4. Wandsworth - £636

-5. Richmond - £623

-32. Brent - £439

-33. Newham - £422

● Five boroughs with the highest median weekly rent for a 2 bedroom property in October 2010:

-1. Kensington & Chelsea - £550

-2. Westminster - £500

-3. City of London - £450

-4. Camden - £375

-5. Islington - £360

-32. Havering - £183

-33. Bexley - £173

● Five boroughs with the highest percentage of households that own their home outright in 2009:

-1. Bexley – 38 per cent

-2. Havering – 36 per cent

-3. Richmond – 32 per cent

-4. Bromley – 31 per cent

-5. Barnet – 28 per cent

-31. Tower Hamlets – 9 per cent

-32. Southwark – 9 per cent

Mean and median average gross annual household income for Output Areas, Lower SOAs, Middle SOAs, Wards and Boroughs, London, 2011/12

This income data is unequivalised - that is it takes no account of average household size or composition within each area.

A full description of how the estimates were put together can be read in this GLA Intelligence Unit Update.

Download:

• Excel (all geographies included in single spreadsheet)

Or **Open: **

- Atlas (or click on image below)

These are experimental income estimates, which means that they are in the testing phase. Feedback is welcome with the intention that the model will be improved in future years if possible. Please send any comments to the Datastore email address.

This GLA Intellingence Update paper presents analysis of the headline findings of these data.

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In the three months to December 2024, average weekly earnings in the United Kingdom grew by 5.9 percent, while pay including bonuses also grew by six percent, when compared with the same period in 2023. In the same month, the inflation rate for the Consumer Price Index was 2.5 percent, indicating that wages were rising faster than prices that month. Average salaries in the UK In 2024, the average salary for full-time workers in the UK was 37,430 British pounds a year, up from 34,963 in the previous year. In London, the average annual salary was far higher than the rest of the country, at 47,455 pounds per year, compared with just 32,960 in North East England. There also still exists a noticeable gender pay gap in the UK, which was seven percent for full-time workers in 2024, down from 7.5 percent in 2023. Lastly, the monthly earnings of the top one percent in the UK was 15,887 pounds as of November 2024, far higher than even that of the average for the top five percent, who earned 7,641 pounds per month, while pay for the lowest 10 percent of earners was just 805 pounds per month. Waves of industrial action in the UK One of the main consequences of high inflation and low wage growth throughout 2022 and 2023 was an increase in industrial action in the UK. In December 2022, for example, there were approximately 830,000 working days lost due to labor disputes. Throughout this month, workers across various industry sectors were involved in industrial disputes, such as nurses, train drivers, and driving instructors. Many of the workers who took part in strikes were part of the UK's public sector, which saw far weaker wage growth than that of the private sector throughout 2022. Widespread industrial action continued into 2023, with approximately 303,000 workers involved in industrial disputes in March 2023. There was far less industrial action by 2024, however, due to settlements in many of the disputes, although some are ongoing as of 2025.

The median annual earnings for full-time employees in the United Kingdom was approximately 37,430 British pounds in 2024, compared with 34,963 pounds in the previous year. At the start of the provided time period, in 1999, the average full-time salary in the UK was 17,803 pounds per year, with median earnings exceeding 20,000 pounds per year in 2002, and 30,000 by 2019. Wages continue to grow faster than inflation in 2024 Between November 2021 and July 2023 inflation was higher than wage growth in the UK, with wages still outpacing inflation as of April 2024. At the peak of the recent wave of high inflation in October 2022, the CPI inflation rate reached a 41-year-high of 11.1 percent, wages were growing much slower at 6.1 percent. Since that peak, inflation remained persistently high for several months, only dropping below double figures in April 2023, when inflation was 8.7 percent, down from 10.1 percent in the previous month. For 2023 as a whole, the average annual rate of inflation was 7.3 percent but is forecast to fall to 2.2 percent in 2024, and 1.5 percent in 2025. Highest and lowest-paid occupations As of 2023, the highest-paid occupation in the UK was that of Chief Executives and Senior Officials, who had an average weekly pay of approximately, 1,576 pounds. By contrast, the lowest-paid occupation that year was that of retail cashiers, and check-out operators, who earned approximately 383 pounds a week. For industry sectors as a whole, people who worked full-time in the electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning supply sector had the highest average earnings, at 955 pounds a week, compared with 505 pounds a week in the accommodation and food services sector, the lowest average earnings in 2023.

Annual estimates of paid hours worked and earnings for UK employees by sex, and full-time and part-time, by age group.

Average weekly earnings at sector level headline estimates, Great Britain, monthly, seasonally adjusted. Monthly Wages and Salaries Survey.

Annual estimates of paid hours worked and earnings for UK employees by sex, and full-time and part-time, by region, and public and private sector, and non-profit bodies and mutual associations. Hourly and weekly estimates are provided for the pay period that included a specified date in April. They relate to employees on adult rates of pay, whose earnings for the survey pay period were not affected by absence. Estimates for 2020 and 2021 include employees who have been furloughed under the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS). Annual estimates are provided for the tax year that ended on 5th April in the reference year. They relate to employees on adult rates of pay who have been in the same job for more than a year.

Estimates of annual household income for the four income types for Middle layer Super Output Areas, or local areas, in England and Wales.

This table shows the average House Price/Earnings ratio, which is an important indicator of housing affordability. Ratios are calculated by dividing house price by the median earnings of a borough.

The Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) is based on a 1 per cent sample of employee jobs. Information on earnings and hours is obtained in confidence from employers. It does not cover the self-employed nor does it cover employees not paid during the reference period. Information is as at April each year. The statistics used are workplace based full-time individual earnings.

Pre-2013 Land Registry housing data are for the first half of the year only, so that they are comparable to the ASHE data which are as at April. This is no longer the case from 2013 onwards as this data uses house price data from the ONS House Price Statistics for Small Areas statistical release. Prior to 2006 data are not available for Inner and Outer London.

The lowest 25 per cent of prices are below the lower quartile; the highest 75 per cent are above the lower quartile.
The "lower quartile" property price/income is determined by ranking all property prices/incomes in ascending order.
The 'median' property price/income is determined by ranking all property prices/incomes in ascending order. The point at which one half of the values are above and one half are below is the median.

Regional data has not been published by DCLG since 2012. Data for regions has been calculated by the GLA. Data since 2014 has been calculated by the GLA using Land Registry house prices and ONS Earnings data.

Link to DCLG Live Tables

An interactive map showing the affordability ratios by local authority for 2013, 2014 and 2015 is also available.

At the turn of the twentieth century, the wealthiest one percent of people in the United Kingdom controlled 71 percent of net personal wealth, while the top ten percent controlled 93 percent. The share of wealth controlled by the rich in the United Kingdom fell throughout the twentieth century, and by 1990 the richest one percent controlled 16 percent of wealth, and the richest ten percent just over half of it.

This deposit contains three do files which were constructed as part of the project “Intergenerational income mobility: Gender, Partnerships and Poverty in the UK”, UKRI grant number ES/P007899/1. The aim of the do files is to convert partnership, fertility, and labour market activity information provided with the age 55 wave of the National Child Development Study into monthly panel format. There are separate do files to do this for each of the three aspects.

This important new work looks to fill an 'evidence deficit' within the literature on intergenerational economic mobility by investigating intergenerational income mobility for two groups who are often overlooked in existing research: women and the poorest in society. To do this, the research will make two methodological advancements to previous work: First, moving to focus on the family unit in the second generation and total family resources rather than individual labour market earnings and second, looking across adulthood to observe partnership, fertility and poverty dynamics rather than a point-in-time static view of these important factors. Specifically it will ask four research questions: 1) What is the relationship between family incomes of parents in childhood and family incomes of daughters throughout adulthood? The majority of previous studies of intergenerational income mobility have focused on the relationship between parents' income in childhood and sons' prime-age labour market earnings. Women have therefore been consistently disregarded due to difficulties observing prime-age labour market earnings for women. This is because women often exit the labour market for fertility reasons, and the timing of this exit and the duration of the spell out of the labour market are related to both parental childhood income and current labour market earnings. This means that previous studies that have focused on employed women only are not representative of the entire population of women. By combining our two advancements, considering total family income and looking across adulthood for women, we can minimise these issues. The life course approach enables us to observe average resources across a long window of time, dealing with issues of temporary labour market withdrawal, while the use of total family income gives the most complete picture of resources available to the family unit including partner's earnings and income from other sources, including benefits. 2) What role do partnerships and assortative mating play in this process across the life course? The shift to focusing on the whole family unit emphasises the importance of partnerships including when they occur and breakdown and who people partner with in terms of education and current labour market earnings. Previous research on intergenerational income mobility in the UK has suggested an important role for who people partner with but has been limited to only focusing on those in partnerships. This work will advance our understanding of partnership dynamics by looking across adulthood at both those in partnerships and at the importance of family breakdown and lone parenthood in this relationship. 3) What is the extent of intergenerational poverty in the UK, and does this persist through adulthood? The previous focus on individuals' labour market earnings has often neglected to consider intergenerational income mobility for the poorest in society: those without labour market earnings for lengthy periods of time who rely on other income from transfers and benefits. The shift in focus to total family resources and the life course approach will allow us to assess whether those who grew up in poor households are more likely to experience persistent poverty themselves in adulthood. 4) What is the role of early skills, education and labour market experiences, including job tenure and progression, in driving these newly estimated relationships? Finally our proposed work will consider the potential mechanisms for these new estimates of intergenerational income mobility for women and the poorest in society for the first time and expand our understanding of potential mechanisms for men. While our previous work showed the importance of early skills and education in transmitting inequality across generations for males, this new work will also consider the role of labour market experiences including job tenure and promotions as part of the process.