Income in the United Kingdom - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

In terms of global poverty criteria, the United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

is a wealthy country, with virtually no people living on less than £4 a day. There is both significant income redistribution and income inequality. Thus in 2008/09 income in the top and bottom fifth of households was £73,800 and £5,000 respectively before taxes and benefits. After tax and benefits household income disparities are significantly reduced (to £53,900 and £13,600 respectively).

The UK Gini coefficient

Gini coefficient

The Gini coefficient is a measure of statistical dispersion developed by the Italian statistician and sociologist Corrado Gini and published in his 1912 paper "Variability and Mutability" ....

is estimated at 0.36. There were over 425,000 net worth

Net worth

In business, net worth is the total assets minus total outside liabilities of an individual or a company. For a company, this is called shareholders' preference and may be referred to as book value. Net worth is stated as at a particular year in time...

Sterling

Pound sterling

The pound sterling , commonly called the pound, is the official currency of the United Kingdom, its Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, British Antarctic Territory and Tristan da Cunha. It is subdivided into 100 pence...

millionaire

Millionaire

A millionaire is an individual whose net worth or wealth is equal to or exceeds one million units of currency. It can also be a person who owns one million units of currency in a bank account or savings account...

s in Britain in 2005, and 383,000 dollar millionaires (financial assets only) in 2004. The main sources for statistics on UK income are Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs

Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs

Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs is a non-ministerial department of the UK Government responsible for the collection of taxes and the payment of some forms of state support....

(HMRC) and the Office for National Statistics.

Taxable income

April 2010 median gross weekly earnings for full-time employees were £499. In 2006, average gross hourly pay for full-time and part-time men and women in the UK as a whole was £12.50 an hour. In 2011, average individual earnings in Britain were £26,000, while the average income for working-age households was around £33,000. That same year, the after-tax earnings of the median household was around £26,000 per annum while average net household income (after tax) stood at £38,547.00.

Data from HMRC 2004-2005; incomes are before tax for individuals. The personal allowance or income tax threshold was £4,745 (people with incomes below this level did not pay income tax). The mean income was £22,800 per year with the average Briton paying £4,060 in income tax.

range	number of taxpayers
£4745 to £6000	1,440,000
£6000 to £7000	1,160,000
£7000 to £8000	1,590,000
£8000 to 10,000	2,950,000
£10,000 to £12,000	2,760,000
£12,000 to £15,000	3,650,000
£15,000 to £20,000	4,950,000
£20,000 to £30,000	6,000,000
£30,000 to £50,000	4,090,000
£50,000 to £70,000	859,000
£70,000 to £100,000	410,000
£100,000 to £200,000	300,000
£200,000 to £500,000	89,000
£500,000 to £1 million	16,000
Over £1 million	6,000

Percentile points for income of individuals before tax

source – for tax year 2004-2005, http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/stats/income_distribution/3-1table-jan2010.pdf updated figures for 2007-8 from January 2010

Percentile point	Income (04-05)	Income (07-08)
Bottom 1%	£4,980	£5,600
5%	£6,070	£6,870
10%	£7,260	£8,240
25%	£10,300	£11,800
Median (50%)	£16,400	£18,500
75%	£26,100	£29,500
Top 10% (90 %)	£39,000	£44,900
95 %	£52,400	£61,500
Top 1%	£117,000	£149,000

Income distribution across age bands

Source for tax year 2004-05

Age Band	Median Income	Mean Income	Median Income (Men)	Mean Income (Men)	Median Income (Women)	Mean Income (Women)
Under 20 years	£ 8,130	£ 9,570	£ 8,490	£ 9,810	£ 7,990	£ 9,250
20 – 24 years	£ 11,800	£ 13,200	£ 12,400	£ 13,800	£ 11,200	£ 12,300
25 – 29 years	£ 17,000	£ 19,300	£ 17,800	£ 20,600	£ 15,900	£ 17,800
30 – 34 years	£ 19,500	£ 23,900	£ 21,600	£ 26,700	£ 16,400	£ 20,100
35 – 39 years	£ 20,100	£ 26,800	£ 23,600	£ 31,700	£ 15,500	£ 20,100
40 – 44 years	£ 20,200	£ 28,100	£ 24,600	£ 34,600	£ 14,900	£ 19,800
45 – 49 years	£ 20,300	£ 28,600	£ 24,800	£ 35,400	£ 15,200	£ 20,100
50 – 54 years	£ 19,300	£ 27,000	£ 23,500	£ 33,400	£ 15,100	£ 19,200
55 – 59 years	£ 17,200	£ 24,500	£ 20,900	£ 29,900	£ 13,100	£ 17,200
60 – 64 years	£ 13,600	£ 20,000	£ 16,500	£ 24,300	£ 10,700	£ 14,200
65 – 69 years	£ 12,600	£ 17,900	£ 13,600	£ 19,500	£ 11,100	£ 14,800
70 – 74 years	£ 13,300	£ 18,100	£ 15,600	£ 21,100	£ 10,700	£ 14,300
Over 75 years	£ 12,400	£ 16,700	£ 15,300	£ 19,900	£ 10,400	£ 14,100

Income distribution across UK regions

(2004-5 Source)

UK Region	Mean Income	% earning over £ 50,000	% of households receiving income related benefits
North East England North East England North East England is one of the nine official regions of England. It covers Northumberland, County Durham, Tyne and Wear, and Teesside . The only cities in the region are Durham, Newcastle upon Tyne and Sunderland...	£19,127	2.78%	31%
North West England North West England North West England, informally known as The North West, is one of the nine official regions of England.North West England had a 2006 estimated population of 6,853,201 the third most populated region after London and the South East...	£20,483	3.99%	27%
Yorkshire Yorkshire Yorkshire is a historic county of northern England and the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its great size in comparison to other English counties, functions have been increasingly undertaken over time by its subdivisions, which have also been subject to periodic reform...	£20,247	3.83%	24%
East Midlands East Midlands The East Midlands is one of the regions of England, consisting of most of the eastern half of the traditional region of the Midlands. It encompasses the combined area of Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Rutland, Northamptonshire and most of Lincolnshire...	£20,868	4.34%	21%
West Midlands West Midlands (region) The West Midlands is an official region of England, covering the western half of the area traditionally known as the Midlands. It contains the second most populous British city, Birmingham, and the larger West Midlands conurbation, which includes the city of Wolverhampton and large towns of Dudley,...	£20,530	3.94%	25%
East of England East of England The East of England is one of the nine official regions of England. It was created in 1994 and was adopted for statistics from 1999. It includes the ceremonial counties of Essex, Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Norfolk and Suffolk. Essex has the highest population in the region.Its...	£24,401	6.83%	20%
London London London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...	£29,947	9.49%	24%
South East England South East England South East England is one of the nine official regions of England, designated in 1994 and adopted for statistical purposes in 1999. It consists of Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, East Sussex, Hampshire, Isle of Wight, Kent, Oxfordshire, Surrey and West Sussex...	£26,328	8.50%	16%
South West England South West England South West England is one of the regions of England defined by the Government of the United Kingdom for statistical and other purposes. It is the largest such region in area, covering and comprising Bristol, Gloucestershire, Somerset, Dorset, Wiltshire, Devon, Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly. ...	£20,954	4.47%	19%
Wales Wales Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...	£19,007	3.05%	24%
Scotland Scotland Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...	£20,895	4.32%	26%
Northern Ireland Northern Ireland Northern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom. Situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, it shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...	£19,705	3.22%	26%

Income distribution by job type

Median earnings between different job types in 2010 can be seen here.
The graph was originally published here
Further information can be obtained from the 2010 Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE)

Post tax household income

The data below is taken from the Institute for Fiscal Studies

Institute for Fiscal Studies

The Institute for Fiscal Studies is an economic research institute based in London, United Kingdom which specialises in UK taxation and public policy...

and is based on a household with two adults and no children for 2006. This is taken from the Household income survey and includes net income after all taxes and including any social security benefits (i.e. the amount of money people actually have to spend). These figures can be converted to match household composition using an -equivalence scale

Annual Net Household income	Percentile point
£5,000	3%
£10,000	10%
£15,000	31%
£20,000	50%
£25,000	66%
£30,000	77%
£35,000	85%
£40,000	90%
£45,000	93%
£50,000	95%
£60,000	97%
£75,000	99%

Wealth

The net worth

Net worth

information is based on data from the HMRC for 2004–2005 and includes marketable assets including house equity, cash, shares, bonds and investment trusts. These values do not include personal possessions.

Percentile point	Wealth to qualify	Percentage of total wealth owned by people at and above this level
Top 1%	£688,228	21% of total UK wealth
2%	£460,179	28% of total UK wealth
5%	£270,164	40% of total UK wealth
10%	£176,221	53% of total UK wealth
25%	£76,098	72% of total UK wealth
50%	£35,807	93% of total UK wealth

High income

The Institute for Fiscal Studies

Institute for Fiscal Studies

The Institute for Fiscal Studies is an economic research institute based in London, United Kingdom which specialises in UK taxation and public policy...

issued a report on Britain's highest earners in January 2008. The report is available here. There are 42 million adults in Britain of whom 29 million are income tax payers. (The remainder are pensioners, students, homemakers, unemployed, those earning under the personal allowance, and unwaged other.) A summary of key findings is shown in the table below:

	All taxpayers	Top 10% to 1% (adults)	Top 1% to 0.1% (adults)	Top 0.1% (adults)
Number	29.5 Million	4.21 Million	421,000	42,000
Entry level for group	£5,093	£35,345	£99,727	£351,137
Mean value for group	£24,769	£49,960	£155,832	£780,043
Average income tax paid	£4,415	£10,550	£49,477	£274,482
Percentage of personal income tax revenue		27.6%	8.6%	4.2%

The top 0.1 % are 90% male and 50% of these people are in the 45 to 54 year age group. 31% of these people live in London and 21% in South East England. 33% of these people are company directors (as reported to HMRC). 30% work in finance and 38% in general business (includes law). The very richest rely on earnings (salary and bonuses) for 58% of income. Income from self employment (such as partnerships in law or accountancy firms) accounts for 23% of income and about 18% from investment income (interest and share dividends).

Sources of income

The Family Resources Survey is a document produced by the Department for Work and Pensions

Department for Work and Pensions

The Department for Work and Pensions is the largest government department in the United Kingdom, created on June 8, 2001 from the merger of the employment part of the Department for Education and Employment and the Department of Social Security and headed by the Secretary of State for Work and...

. This details income amongst a representative sample of the British population. The 2005-2006 report can be found here. This report tabulates sources of income as a percentage of total income.

Region	Employment (Salaries Salary A salary is a form of periodic payment from an employer to an employee, which may be specified in an employment contract. It is contrasted with piece wages, where each job, hour or other unit is paid separately, rather than on a periodic basis.... & Wages)	Self Employed Self-employment Self-employment is working for one's self.Self-employed people can also be referred to as a person who works for himself/herself instead of an employer, but drawing income from a trade or business that they operate personally....	Investment Income	Working tax credit Working tax credit The Working Tax Credit is a state benefit in the United Kingdom made to people who work on a low income. It is a part of the current system of refundable tax credits introduced in April 2003 and is a means-tested social security benefit...	State Pensions	Occupational Pensions	Disability Benefits	Other Social Security Benefits	Other Income Sources
UK	64%	11%	2%	1%	6%	7%	2%	5%	2%
Northern Ireland	60%	11%	1%	2%	7%	5%	4%	7%	3%
Scotland	66%	7%	2%	2%	7%	7%	3%	5%	2%
Wales	60%	8%	2%	2%	8%	8%	4%	6%	1%
England	64%	11%	2%	1%	6%	7%	2%	5%	2%
North East England	64%	5%	2%	2%	8%	6%	4%	7%	2%
North West England	59%	13%	2%	2%	7%	7%	3%	6%	2%
Yorkshire	64%	7%	2%	2%	7%	7%	2%	5%	3%
East Midlands	65%	9%	2%	1%	7%	6%	2%	5%	3%
West Midlands	62%	8%	3%	2%	8%	6%	2%	5%	3%
Eastern England	56%	22%	2%	1%	5%	7%	1%	3%	2%
London	71%	10%	2%	1%	4%	4%	1%	5%	3%
South East	66%	9%	4%	1%	7%	8%	1%	4%	2%
South West England	60%	9%	4%	1%	7%	10%	2%	4%	2%

Other Social Security benefits include: Housing Benefit

Housing Benefit

Housing Benefit is a means tested social security benefit in the UK that is intended to help meet Housing costs for rented accommodation. The primary legislation governing Housing Benefit is the Social Security Contributions and Benefits Act 1992. Operationally, the governing Regulations are...

, Income Support

Income Support

Income support is an income-related means-tested benefit in the United Kingdom for people who are on a low income. Claimants of Income Support may be entitled to certain other benefits, for example, Housing Benefit, Council Tax Benefit and help with health costs...

and Jobseeker's Allowance

Jobseeker's Allowance

Jobseeker's Allowance is a United Kingdom benefit, colloquially known as the dole . It is a form of unemployment benefit paid by the government to people who are unemployed and seeking work. It is part of the social security benefits system and is intended to cover living expenses while the...