In March 2025, the top one percent of earners in the United Kingdom received an average pay of over 16,000 British pounds per month, compared with the bottom ten percent of earners who earned around 800 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. As of this year, the average annual earnings for all full-time employees was 37,430 pounds, up from 34,963 pounds in the previous year. Strong wage growth continues in 2025 As of February 2025, wages in the UK were growing by approximately 5.9 percent compared with the previous year, with this falling to 5.6 percent if bonus pay is included. When adjusted for inflation, regular pay without bonuses grew by 2.1 percent, with overall pay including bonus pay rising by 1.9 percent. While UK wages have now outpaced inflation for almost two years, there was a long period between 2021 and 2023 when high inflation in the UK was rising faster than wages, one of the leading reasons behind a severe cost of living crisis at the time. UK's gender pay gap falls in 2024 For several years, the difference between average hourly earnings for men and women has been falling, with the UK's gender pay gap dropping to 13.1 percent in 2024, down from 27.5 percent in 1997. When examined by specific industry sectors, however, the discrepancy between male and female earnings can be much starker. In the financial services sector, for example, the gender pay gap was almost 30 percent, with professional, scientific and technical professions also having a relatively high gender pay gap rate of 20 percent.

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.

Households in the bottom decile in the United Kingdom earned, on average, ****** British pounds per year in 2023/24, compared with the top decile which earned around ******* pounds per year.

75% of households from the Bangladeshi ethnic group were in the 2 lowest income quintiles (after housing costs were deducted) between April 2021 and March 2024.

In 2022/23 approximately *****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 *******taxpayers in the UK earned over one million pounds.

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

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.

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 2025 Between November 2021 and July 2023 inflation was higher than wage growth in the UK, with wages still outpacing inflation as of March 2025. 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 fell to 2.5 percent in 2024, but is forecast to increase to 3.2 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.

Ratio of household equivalised income of the top 10 per cent of households to the income of the bottom 10 per cent of households. Ratio calculated using weekly household income adjusted to take account of differences in numbers and ages of residents. This dataset is one of the Greater London Authority's measures of Economic Fairness. Click here to find out more. This dataset is one of the Greater London Authority's measures of Economic Development strategy. Click here to find out more.

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

The Households Below Average Income (HBAI) data presents information on living standards in the UK based on household income measures for the financial year.

HBAI uses equivalised disposable household income as a proxy for living standards in order to allow comparisons of the living standards of different types of households (that is, income is adjusted to take into account variations in the size and composition of the households in a process known as equivalisation). A key assumption made in HBAI is that all individuals in the household benefit equally from the combined income of the household. This enables the total equivalised income of the household to be used as a proxy for the standard of living of each household member.

In line with international best practice, the income measures used in HBAI are subject to several statistical adjustments and, as such, are not always directly relatable to income amounts as they might be understood by people on a day-to-day basis. These adjustments, however, allow consistent comparison over time and across households of different sizes and compositions. HBAI uses variants of CPI inflation when estimating how incomes are changing in real terms over time.

The main data source used in this study is the Family Resources Survey (FRS), a continuous cross-sectional survey. The FRS normally has a sample of 19,000 - 20,000 UK households. The use of survey data means that HBAI estimates are subject to uncertainty, which can affect how changes should be interpreted, especially in the short term. Analysis of geographies below the regional level is not recommended from this data.

Further information and the latest publication can be found on the gov.uk HBAI webpage. The HBAI team want to provide user-friendly datasets and clearer documentation, so please contact team.hbai@dwp.gov.uk if you have any suggestions or feedback on the new harmonised datasets and documentation.

An earlier HBAI study, Institute for Fiscal Studies Households Below Average Income Dataset, 1961-1991, is held under SN 3300.

Latest Edition Information

For the 19th edition (April 2025), resamples data have been added to the study alongside supporting documentation. Main data back to 1994/95 have been updated to latest-year prices, and the documentation has been updated accordingly.

Using the HBAI files

Users should note that either 7-Zip or a recent version of WinZip is needed to unzip the HBAI download zip files, due to their size. The inbuilt Windows compression software will not handle them correctly.

Labelling of variables
Users should note that many variables across the resamples files do not include full variable or value labels. This information can be found easily in the documentation - see the Harmonised Data Variables Guide.

HBAI versions

The HBAI datasets are available in two versions at the UKDS:

1. End User Licence (EUL) (Anonymised) Datasets:

These datasets contain no names, addresses, telephone numbers, bank account details, NINOs or any personal details that can be considered disclosive under the terms of the ONS Disclosure Control guidance. Changes made to the datasets are as follows:

• All ages above 80 are instead top-coded to 80 years of age.
• The variable for the amount of Council Tax liability for the household and pensioner flags for the head and spouse have been removed.
• All amount variables have been rounded to the nearest £1.
• A very small number of large households (with 10 or more individuals) have been removed from the dataset.

2. Secure Access Datasets:

Secure Access datasets for HBAI are held under SN 7196. The Secure Access data are not subject to the same edits as the EUL version and are, therefore, more disclosive and subject to strict access conditions. They are currently only available to UK HE/FE applicants. Prospective users of the Secure Access version of the HBAI must fulfil additional requirements beyond those associated with the EUL datasets.

Earnings and employment statistics from Pay As You Earn (PAYE) Real Time Information (RTI), UK, NUTS 1, 2 and 3 areas and local authorities, monthly, seasonally adjusted.

Information on farm household income and farm household composition. Source agency: Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Designation: National Statistics Language: English Alternative title: Farm Household Income and Household Composition, England

If you require the datasets in a more accessible format, please contact fbs.queries@defra.gsi.gov.uk

Background and guidance on the statistics

Information on farm household income and farm household composition was collected in the Farm Business Survey (FBS) for England for the first time in 2004/05. Collection of household income data is restricted to the household of the principal farmer from each farm business. For practical reasons, data is not collected for the households of any other farmers and partners. Two-thirds of farm businesses have an input only from the principal farmer’s household (see table 5). However, details of household composition are collected for the households of all farmers and partners in the business, but not employed farm workers.

Data on the income of farm households is used in conjunction with other economic information for the agricultural sector (e.g. farm business income) to help inform policy decisions and to help monitor and evaluate current policies relating to agriculture in the United Kingdom by Government. It also informs wider research into the economic performance of the agricultural industry.

This release gives the main results from the income and composition of farm households and the off-farm activities of the farmer and their spouse (Including common law partners) sections of the FBS. These sections include information on the household income of the principal farmer’s household, off-farm income sources for the farmer and spouse and incomes of other members of their household and the number of working age and pensionable adults and children in each of the households on the farm (the information on household composition can be found in Appendix B).

This release provides the main results from the 2013/14 FBS. The results are presented together with confidence intervals.

Survey content and methodology

The Farm Business Survey (FBS) is an annual survey providing information on the financial position and physical and economic performance of farm businesses in England. The sample of around 1,900 farm businesses covers all regions of England and all types of farming with the data being collected by face to face interview with the farmer. Results are weighted to represent the whole population of farm businesses that have at least 25 thousand Euros of standard output as recorded in the annual June Survey of Agriculture and Horticulture. In 2013 there were just over 58 thousand farm businesses meeting this criteria.

Since 2009/10 a sub-sample of around 1,000 farms in the FBS has taken part in both the additional surveys on the income and composition of farm households and the off-farm activities of the farmer and their spouse. In previous years, the sub-sample had included over 1,600 farms. As such, caution should be taken when comparing to earlier years.

The farms that responded to the additional survey on household incomes and off-farm activities of the farmer and spouse had similar characteristics to those farms in the main FBS in terms of farm type and geographical location. However, there is a smaller proportion of very large farms in the additional survey than in the main FBS. Full details of the characteristic of responding farms can be found at Appendix A of the notice.

For further information about the Farm Business Survey please see: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/department-for-environment-food-rural-affairs/series/farm-business-survey

Data analysis

The results from the FBS relate to farms which have a standard output of at least 25,000 Euros. Initial weights are applied to the FBS records based on the inverse sampling fraction for each design stratum (farm type by farm size). These weights are then adjusted (calibration weighting) so that they can produce unbiased estimators of a number of different target variables. Completion of the additional survey on household incomes and off-farm activities of the farmer and spouse was voluntary and a sample of around 1,000 farms was achieved. In order to take account of non-response, the results have been reweighted using a method that preserves marginal totals for populations according to farm type and farm size groups. As such, farm population totals for other classifications (e.g. regions) will not be in-line with results using the main FBS weights, nor will any results produced for variables derived from the rest of the FBS (e.g. farm business income).

Accuracy and reliability of the results

We show 95% confidence intervals against the results. These show the range of values that may apply to the figures. They mean that we are 95% confident that this range contains the true value. They are calculated as the standard errors (se) multiplied by 1.96 to give the 95% confidence interval. The standard errors only give an indication of the sampling error. They do not reflect any other sources of survey errors, such as non-response bias. For the Farm Business Survey, the confidence limits shown are appropriate for comparing groups within the same year only; they should not be used for comparing with previous years since they do not allow for the fact that many of the same farms will have contributed to the Farm Business Survey in both years.

Availability of results

This release contains headline results for each section. The full set of results can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/department-for-environment-food-rural-affairs/series/farm-business-survey#publications

Defra statistical notices can be viewed on the on the statistics pages of the Defra website at https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/department-for-environment-food-rural-affairs/about/statistics. This site also shows details of future publications, with pre-announced dates.

Data Uses

Data from the Farm Business Survey (FBS) are provided to the EU as part of the Farm Accountancy Data Network (FADN). The data have been used to help inform policy decisions (e.g. Reform of Pillar 1 and Pillar 2 of Common Agricultural Policy) and to help monitor and evaluate current policies relating to agriculture in England (and the EU). It is also widely used by the industry for benchmarking and informs wider research into the economic performance of the agricultural industry.

User engagement

As part of our ongoing commitment to compliance with the Code of Practice for Official Statistics http://www.statisticsauthority.gov.uk/assessment/code-of-practice/index.html, we wish to strengthen our engagement with users of these statistics and better understand the use made of them and the types of decisions that they inform. Consequently, we invite users to make themselves known, to advise us of the use they do, or might, make of these statistics, and what their wishes are in terms of engagement. Feedback on this notice and enquiries about these statistics are also welcome.

Definitions

Household income of the principal farmer Principal farmer’s household income has the following components: (1) The share of farm business income (FBI) (including income from farm diversification) attributable to the principal farmer and their spouse. (2) Principal farmer’s and spouse’s off farm income from employment and self-employment, investment income, pensions and social payments. (3) Income of other household members. The share of farm business income and all employment and self-employment incomes, investment income and pension income are recorded as gross of income tax payments and National Insurance contributions, but after pension contributions. In addition, no deduction is made for council tax.

Household A household is defined as a single person or group of people living at the same address as their only or main residence, who either share one meal a day together or share the living accommodation. A household must contain at least one person who received drawings from the farm business or who took a share of the profit from the business.

Drawings Drawings represent the monies which the farmer takes from the business for their own personal use. The percentage of total drawings going to each household is collected and is used to calculate the total share of farm business income for the principal farmer’s household.

Mean Mean household income of individuals is the ”average”, found by adding up the weighted household incomes for each individual farm in the population for analysis and dividing the result by the corresponding weighted number of farms. In this report average is usually taken to refer to the mean.

Percentiles These are the values which divide the population for analysis, when ranked by an output variable (e.g. household income or net worth), into 100 equal-sized groups. E.g. twenty five per cent of the population would have incomes below the 25th percentile.

Median Median household income divides the population, when ranked by an output variable, into two equal sized groups. The median of the whole population is the same as the 50th percentile. The term is also used for the midpoint of the subsets of the income distribution

Quartiles Quartiles are values which divide the population, when ranked by an output variable, into four equal-sized groups. The lowest quartile is the same as the 25th percentile. The divisions of a population split by quartiles are referred to as quarters in this publication.

Quintiles Quintiles are values which divide the population, when ranked by an output variable, into five equal-sized groups. The divisions of a population split by quintiles are referred to as fifths in this publication.

Assets Assets include

Households in the Indian and White Other ethnic groups received the highest percentage of their income from employment out of all ethnic groups.

The median annual earnings in the United Kingdom was 37,430 British pounds per year in 2024. Annual earnings varied significantly by region, ranging from 47,455 pounds in London to 32,960 pounds in the North East. Along with London, two other areas of the UK had median annual earnings above the UK average; South East England, and Scotland, at 39,038 pounds and 38,315 pounds respectively. Regional Inequality in the UK Various other indicators highlight the degree of regional inequality in the UK, especially between London and the rest of the country. Productivity in London, as measured by output per hour, was 26.2 percent higher than the UK average. By comparison, every other UK region, except the South East, fell below the UK average for productivity. In gross domestic product per head, London was also an outlier. The average GDP per head in the UK was just over 37,000 pounds in 2023, but for London it was almost 64,000 pounds. Again, the South East's GDP per head was slightly above the UK average, with every other region below it. Within London itself, there is also a great degree of inequality. In 2023, for example, the average earnings in Kensington and Chelsea were 964 pounds per week, compared with 675 pounds in Barking and Dagenham. Wages continue to grow in 2025 In March 2025, weekly wages in the UK were growing by around 5.6 percent, or 1.8 percent when adjusted for inflation. For almost two years, wages have grown faster than inflation after a long period where prices were rising faster than wages between 2021 and 2023. This was due to a sustained period of high inflation in the UK, which peaked in October 2022 at 11.1 percent. Although inflation started to slow the following month, it wasn't until June 2023 that wages started to outpace inflation. By this point, the damage caused by high energy and food inflation had led to the the worst Cost of Living Crisis in the UK for a generation.