It does indeed but thats why Median average is much more useful than Mean average as it removes the issues somewhat. Maybe a follow up where data is available :)
@@TobyNewbatt Not really as 90% above the median average are in London meaning if you removed it the median would massively shift. You basically have to remove London for the figures to work for anyone.
00:14 📊 The UK median income stands at £28,863 annually or £2,334 monthly, encompassing both full-time and part-time workers across all age groups. 01:39 💰 To be considered "rich" in the UK, an income of around £100,000 is necessary, though this figure varies based on location and living expenses. 03:02 📈 Real wage increases have fluctuated over the last two decades, with noticeable impacts from events like the global financial crash and the COVID-19 pandemic. 04:42 💼 The top 25% of earners in the UK require an income of approximately £49,974 or above, comprising around 5.93 million individuals. 05:57 💵 To be in the top 10% of earners in the UK, anincome of around £71,900 annually is needed, translating to approximately £5,991 per month before taxes. 10:33 💸 Membership in the top 1% of UK earners requires an income of approximately £217,800 annually or £17,640 monthly gross, with a take-home pay of £10,192 after taxes and pension contributions.
Interesting thanks. I was on a very good income, but the downside was long hours and high deductions for tax and NI. I was fortunate enough to plan early retirement at 52. My income dropped to a third of my salary, but when taxes and expenses were considered, I didn't feel much worse off financially and my time is my own........ I did try a bit of freelance work briefly, but quickly realised the money wasn't worth the stress. I did plan this, but I also consider myself fortunate to have been able to do it.
I am glad you pointed out the impact of Tax and NI - plus you are fully exposed to wider taxation. The bit I hate is that my take home pay around 30k, was about 2k per month, I am beyond doubling the annual salary now, but I have not had a month where I take home 4k per month. Which shows the dragnet effect of direct taxation. Good to hear of someone who retired at 52, I am 54 now, and my retirement options even with a healthy pension are 67....
Great video, thanks. The NHS ain’t gonna get me to that 1% so I’m relying on you youtube. I just need to increase my youtube income by [checks notes] 1200%. Easy!
I think “rich” is an interesting term. At 71k a year, being in the top 10% it is unlikely the person would be classed as rich. Unlikely they will have kids in private school or be jetting around all the time. Their life will be comfortable if they manage lifestyle creep. If you are outside the top couple of %, “Rich” comes from wealth built up and passed down rather than salary income.
Agree, I’m on far higher than that but also have a wife and two kids to maintain too within my salary. I’d consider myself comfortable but far from rich currently.
The more you earn ( salary ) the more you pay via PAYE is correct but with more disposable income it leads to a greater chance of claiming some of that tax back via tax efficient investment schemes such as pension contributions or EIS / SEIS investments. If you are on circa £50k and have a young family / mortgage you won't have much if any investment income to make the most of these efficient schemes and that's the key difference I think as it will shift the actual amount paid in tax after self assessments are filed.
absolutely, you do have a lot more options - you could say that the UK is very friendly towards high earners when you think about it adding up all of the ISA/ SIPP/ EIS options you can choose.
If you're on 50k with a young family there's a good chance you'll be in the top 10% when your kids have grown up. Where you are now is not where you'll be.
This is so wrong. 10% of people earn around 100K and after tax is only 60K. It deliberately limits the imagination of middle class. Just go down to Marbella and walk along the quay and listen to the conversation on board. Most of them are British. Not Arabic, not American but British. The cost of keeping a yacht is 10-20% of the vlaue of it. The 1% won't be in Marbella. They will be in Sardinia or south of France. Therefore, how can so many British people have so many yachts on 60K a year? This is why these figures are wrong.
@@Abdul_Rahman86 lower than in England and you have higher income tax. But as the counterweight life is slightly cheaper in comparison to England, still bloody expensive though.
@@winston022 yeah that’s pretty harsh. The worst part is just before the additional tax rate. Saw someone run the numbers and it’s basically 60% tax between 100-120k
@@mattyward1979Good on you. Smart with the pension although there is a trap there as well since tax-free amount is frozen and LTA might be reintroduced. This year I'll manage to put 35k into my pension.
Indeed. I feel wealthy though I live a very simple minimalist life in a rented studio flat in Manchester (I'm 65 and now retired, in the sense that work is optional). The reason I feel wealthy is because, once the state pension arrives in a few months, I'll have ample income to cover my living costs plus I have savings invested for any additional expenses. Basically, not having to work to earn unless I choose to is wealthy to me.
I spent 25yrs in the military as a PAYE wage slave but built up a portfolio of properties (each time I came back from an Operational Deployment with £ in the bank I bought a house) at the same time my wife (who's a midwife) started a company supplying bank nurses. Clearly covid send the nursing business to stratospheric levels to the point she now does that full time and no longer works as a nurse. In short we're now extremely well off (on paper) and live a very enviable lifestyle. But we've worked our butts off for 30yrs and taken some crazy risks to get here so I have no issues with the fact we're easily inside the top 1% figure. Two more years to go and we'll be selling up and seeing out our time somewhere a lot warmer than Cheshire! Being your own boss and maximizing tax efficiency is the only way to go.
@@benj6244 - it really is. Most of our risks have been balanced and judged but once we went all in on a seemingly crazy hunch and it paid off massively. That one move secured our future.. But we were mid-30s and figured that if it didn't work we'd have enough time left to start over and go again. There's no freaking way I'd take that chance now! 😁
@@stevencalvert9454 - UK tax law is designed to get money out of 95% of the population, the key is learning how to get into the other 5%! But you're correct, the way I set up my property company almost 30yrs ago isn't allowed nowadays and a few of the reinvestments and capitalisation methods I used are also no longer legit. In many respects I was just lucky with the timing in starting this when I did.
In 1999, I was working in London as a contract business analyst for Merril Lynch on £550 a day. I left as the uk taxes were too high (circa 55% as I had to pay employer NI too) and went to Luxembourg and got paid double with much lower taxes. 25 years later though, I see rates aren’t much different in the uk.
It's shocking how low salaries are in the uk. You have to remember we pay lots of tax after paying tax on your take home salary; council tax, fuel tax etc. How do people save for pensions, and buy cars, and holidays ? Credit? Life time of debt?
As a beef farmer in Derbyshire,,we are extremely well off,,,but it's ALL tied up ,,you can't physically spend it..But money in the bank doesn't mean ""rich"" money is only a means to a end...Family is much better to have than cash.
You may be interested to find the figures for total net wealth in the UK too (as opposed to income). I did it a couple of years ago, I can't remember the figures, but it was surprising to find just how little it took to be in the top 10 or 20%. I think I remember that it only took about £3.8 million to be in the top 1%. As that is total wealth including property, pensions, savings, investments, businesses, etc. I think a lot of people that seem rich based on their homes etc must have a lot of debt otherwise they'd easily be in the upper brackets. I also recall that the very wealthiest had much more tied up in businesses and higher risk investments.
I know this is for PAYE but it would be great to find a way to include incomes that are not PAYE. I’m a small business owner and my PAYE salary is £12.5k and I pay the rest in dividends (to pay less tax) and obviously most small business owners do the same. There are an estimated 5.5 million small businesses all with company directors that can legally not pay themselves through PAYE to avoid paying larger taxes. Because of this I would weight/slant all of those averages up by a few grand each bracket.
Should also be remembered that the average private sector employer is paying 5-8% of salary into an employee's pension whereas the equivalent value in the public sector is 25-30%. Those public sector pensions are not as valuable as they were a few decades ago but still hugely better than in the private sector. As someone who did a decade in public and two decades in private, i know the value of both. A few years back, when annuity rates were awful, I'd have needed a pension pot of nearly £400k to get an annuity equivalent to my relatively modest £7k public sector pension.
I can't remember who said it, but it's not what you earn, it's what you keep for true wealth. I hear countless stories of people in the supposed top 10%+ bracket who live pay to pay... mind boggling really when you look at the monthly take home pay...
Agreed. I'm 30 and have friends in London who make £50-60k, which to me sounds like a huge amount of money. But their income tax, rent, bills, student loan repayments, travel, and general cost of living mean they aren't able to save all that much. The jobs are stressful, and they live in ramshackle flats in dodgy areas, with noisy neighbours and bad air quality. And to keep making that amount of money they need to stay in London, where they currently have no hope of buying a home. Commuter towns are not even much cheaper when you calculate the train fares and time spent travelling. It all takes a toll on their physical and mental health. I only make in the low £20k's, but am lucky enough to have moved back in with family in the midlands, just paying my own food and share of the bills, and am able to save about half my paycheck, which goes straight into an index fund. It's far from an ideal living situation, but paradoxically I've never felt such an immense sense of freedom and optimism. In a few years I should be earning a bit more and will have saved a hefty deposit for a small house.
@@thegrinderman1090Too true had a couple mates in London making between 100-150k at one point. One was pretty open and showed me his take home pay was “only” around 70k. Their studio flat rent was around 3k a month. Meaning around three quarters of their income had gone on tax and rent alone. The idea of owning any property in or around London was still miles off for them without a partner on similar income. Jobs were stressful too. They’ve both changed to lower paying, less stressful ones.
@pmtilbury6596 Well, that comes down to a subjective discussion of life choices. Either, don't have kids or don't send them to private school and look for a cheaper living arrangement perhaps?
Very interesting. I'd probably fall into top 2 or 3% but that's happened in the last few years as cost of living has gone up. We're lucky and have decent house, cars holidays etc but as you mentioned in your last comments, we don't feel like big earners. I don't know how people in the "middle" are managing atm. Especially once you get a family, feels like constant bleeding of cash.
I probably earn slightly less than that middle bracket with my basic pay (I'm a single, 45 year old psychiatric nurse; for context). Sure, money can be tight at times but I don't drive and don't have children and I think that's a huge factor in why I don't feel the pinch as much as some of my peers. For me it's all about scaling back and managing my finances efficiently. I used to earn more years ago when I was in management, yet I was no more comfortable than I am now because I spent more because there was more to spend.What I do have in abundance now, is time to invest in my hobbies and visiting friends and family more than I used to. I work three 13 hour shifts a week, and can pick up overtime across the NHS trust whenever I want if I need to, there's never a shortage. That being said, I rarely do because I'd rather be off the clock than on it, enjoying myself. Most of my high earning friends are never off the clock, they work huge hours and are constantly emailing or picking up calls outside of work time, or just simply highly stressed because they can't switch off. I definitely don't feel like my life is any less rich because of my annual income.
Imo all these data points are misleading. First thing is the difference between london and ex-london. Second is income from earning vs income from other sources. The wealth gap is much larger than the earnings gap but earners are paying most of the tax.
100% agree, completely undifferentiated. If you live in London the cost of living (food, transport, nursery/school fees etc.) is multiples of outside London. Income from employment is taxed at stratospheric levels
@user-si7fj5rh5unot sure what you are trying to say with your comment? Of course one saves and invests but that has nothing to do with affordability of daily life and tax rates (=net take home pay)
It’s not so much about your income but what your outgoings are that is a true measure of wealth… in other words, it’s not what you have at the beginning of the month, but what you’re left with at the end of the month that you save.
Thanks for the interesting video. My humble observation is that higher wages do not buy you quality of life anymore in the UK. I recently moved to Oxford from continental Europe with a PhD degree and 10+ years of experience in engineering. I got a very decent salary which (by extrapolating data from the video) would probably put me in top 5% earners in the UK. My quality of life is lowest in years, however, due to the 3 main factors: inflated prices and rent for low quality houses, dysfunctional public healthcare (enormous queues in my local NHS branch), comparatively bad (and expensive) public transport and roads (outside of London). Again, this is just my observation as a foreigner.
I will add these points: 1) This excludes non-pay income and benefits. The public sector will have non-apy perks equating to 30-50% of their income - eg guarnateed pension, sick & maternity pay, longer holidays, etc. An average nurse on £350,000 would need aorund £45,000 to buy the perks in the private sector. 2) Those earning £100,000 to £125,000 will pay around 65% in tax & NI for this band of income.
As a certain rival economics podcaster highlighted recently, it's wealth that needs to be taxed. Many multimillionaires with huge property estates pay proportionally very little tax
We already have wealth taxed. Actually multiple times. It's taxed on death when it's passed to the next generation. And let's remember that any new wealth acquired must have been taxed at the point when it was earned via the income tax.
We have a household income of over 80K and we are not feeling rich just normal and not having to worry that much about bills . I am in the top 15%(over 60K/year) and my wife(over 20k/year) is in the lower end .
It’s all interesting but not having self employed in here is the issue. I’m PAYE and in the top 10%. I’ve lost most child care funding and with NI pay over 50% back to HMRC. I know self employed people who are much wealthier as they earn from dividends and run car etc through the business. So all I’ve learned is I’m the idiot for paying tax others aren’t paying
I'm similar, in the top 10% bracket. My eyes water at my tax deductions. I'm very grateful for higher wages but it's only in the last year I got bumped up from a much more modest amount. I definitely don't feel well off.
The best way to see how little you earn is to take your last payslip and divide the net pay by 30. That's how much you have to live on per day. Has to pay for everything, including your future years where you don't want to work. Tiny, isn't it?
I would say it’s lower than expected compared to US incomes. The median household income of the top 10% group in 2022 was $390k, median of the 80-90% group was $189k according the federal reserve. We are below that $189k household, but with two working parents and decent jobs, getting over $150k is doable for lots of people. Lots of room to save and invest with that amount, assuming you have a low mortgage rate locked in (big if). One downside is the potentially high cost of healthcare when you need it though.
And you would need to take out an average of 4% that goes to pension. And possibly, quality of life. Europeans tend to start at 25 days off a year which increases depending on age. Then there's maternity leave etc. All these small, but important quality of life stuff. And maybe also what can you buy in the supermarket for that income. I find EU supermarkets cheaper and higher in quality compared to the US, but that's been a while ago. Just my thoughts.
I'm 38, live in the home counties of London on 140k excluding bonus, but get salaried on 90k. The reason being that I put 50k into pension to avoid the 60% tax bracket (Tax free allowance reduction + higher tax bracket). Although a high earner, you do not realistically feel like one as you do not see the 'extra' cash in your account, but the pension pot is growing.
I think being able to salary sacrifice into a home might be a good way to fix housing affordability - I would happily take a tax break if I can offload a bunch of my income into a house that I live in
I honestly cannot comprehend how a single person can survive on average salaries in Britain. My household is about 110k before tax and (admittedly pretty high) pension contributions. I have a peugeot and vauxhall in the drive and live in a very modest 3 bed with what i imagine is an average mortgage. 2 kids. I get a holiday a year and eat out a couple of times a month. I definitely do not feel and better off than 'comfortable'
Very interesting. As an expat working in the US, it is remarkably different to what I expected. Median salary does not seem to have gone up much since I left over 20 years ago. A little depressing!
@lesleyrobertson5465 got to call BS on that quick Google says you was on about 17k 20 years ago and 34k now. So can't believe 17k or 100% payrise is £400pm
Thank you, very interesting and informative video. I hope some senior members of the Labour Party take note of your final section, it doesn’t matter how much higher earners pay in tax, the Labour Party always wants more!
I used to be quite anti labour party. However under the Tories I'm taxed more than anyone since ww2. I fail to see how labour could make it worse? The joke I have amongst other landlords is, how could labour possibly fuck us over more than the Tories, they've had the lot already.
@@bogstandardash3751 true, the current mob calling themselves Tory seem to have forgotten the low tax/small state philosophy of the Conservative party. That being said, things will only get worse under Labour !
@djsconsulting how soon we forget Liz Truss! :-) Well, we'll soon find out if Labour are little-Britain liars like the Tories. Let's face it, they couldn't do worse - and the country needs a change.
Great analysis as always. Rich people don't earn a wage so this data does not reflect real wealth in the UK. There are loads of business owners and sole traders who aren't declaring enough of a wage to pay higher rate tax but drive Range Rovers and have big houses.
Household of £59k and £39k… we are able to absorb the CoL situation right now, but we are certainly noticing it! We certainly don’t *feel* like a top 12% household [feels like it] should, but objectively know it to be true.
A lot depends on the debt levels one has. Mortgages are crippling many now but those who don't have a mortgage and have no other debts / own outright aren't being affected much.
@@ep1929 I don’t agree, the cost of living increase over the last couple of years is noticeable if you have paid any attention at all to your groceries spend (for example). Ok, this who are wealthy enough not to bother looking at prices of grocery shopping won’t be aware of it, but they likely are wealthy enough that they wouldn’t notice an impact. As for us, our mortgage isn’t crippling, it’s actually very conservative relative to what many say. About 17% of our household net. We still notice that things are expensive and trending up, even if we are able to absorb it.
Brilliantly delivered. Thanks! My estimate of the top 1 percentile threshold was 190K. If you look at director’s emoluments of most companies around the UK, it’s around that mark but I am a bit dated on my stats.
Thanks Toby. Another great video with great design and info graphics. I don’t have the tools to simulate one investing strategy that I would like to see explored. Maybe you think it could make a video about it. So here it goes: I understand the DCA vs selling at high and buying at low comparisons and surprisingly it doesn’t pay to time the market. What about the strategy of: Buying a global fund (VWRP) for example and go all in the year after a negative return. Then stay invested for 2 years. After those two years put money in cash interest earning accounts (could do 3 or 4% interest for the simulation). Get back on the global fund after the next negative year. (This is to test that after a negative year normally there are at least 2 years of positive returns)
The bit missing is the "Actual Rich" - those who have hundreds of millions of equity, or even Billions. Would be interesting to see how much of their money they actually pay tax on & whether it correlates to the amount of tax that normal people are paying. I suspect it is very very little & a much smaller % than the rest of us. I also suspect because of this, its very difficult to find out what they don't want us to see...
Genuinely gobsmacked I’m classed as being in the top 25%, earning 51k a year, I live about 20 minutes from you, without divulging to much information we have a really good rugby league team and visit Old Trafford most years, so I obviously don’t live in Warrington, really informative video and I was extremely surprised by the numbers.
Imagine how those earning less feel. I get £4,070.40 a year to live on since becoming disabled following an accident. No one wants to hire you, even with a degree.
@@LiquidMarvelsorry to hear that. Without knowing your exact situation I've always thought it a bit strange for employers to overlook the disabled especially in the tech age of working on the computer. There should be a vast amount of jobs that can be remote on pc and if I was an employer I'd be fighting for someone who would be incredibly motived to sit and do pc work all day and would be an employee for life. Didn't mean that to sound as cringe as it came out I hope you get the point.
Hello @ Toby - the numbers for inflation are incorrect they say 4% but the actual rate of inflation is in the region of 6.4% so a raise of 6% is still a pay cut of .4% The inflation numbers that are cascaded do not take housing costs into account - be it rent or mortgage; seeing as that makes up a huge proportion of typical household expenditure the figures lack full consideration without this.
I was on £33k 8 years ago and now earn about 4x that (so not quite in the 1%). Some of my observations along the way: - Taxes eat up a lot of my income; my direct taxes are now higher than the median salary. I also observe that tax thresholds have not kept pace with inflation at all. - Housing costs eat up a lot of income too. The top paying jobs are invariably in London, which means living in the London commuter belt (can't afford a decent house in London) where property prices are very high. The dream is to have the same job with the same pay but up in the North East, but that's not feasible for most. - Lifestyle inflation is very much a thing, it's unavoidable to some extent as you do want nicer things. However, I still shop at Aldi and Tesco and I bought my car used to avoid wasting money on unnecessary stuff. I've also stopped buying lunch or coffees at work, inflation since the pandemic has made these far too expensive now. - The truly rich don't figure into this analysis at all since they don't actually need a job for income.
Toby,, good video to get an update on the latest figures. But it's worth pointing out that salaried people on PAYE are rarely rich. Being in the top 10% of earners does not make someone wealthy. At the lower end of the spectrum, in-work benefits can actually push up someone's net income to be equivalent to what someone on a £50k salary would take home after tax. At the other end, earning £70k might put you in the top 10% of wage earners but won't put you in the top 10% of all forms of income such as dividends. Anyone on £70k will testify that they are not living a life of luxury especially with the cost of housing. In fact from a household income perspective, someone on £70k is only a little above the median for a family. Comfortable maybe, but not rich.
Got to love official figures source data. I do wonder how many of the local residents roll around in the expensive cars, holidays and phenomenal costly houses whilst indulging whim purchases. I suspect a lot is cash in hand. And where it’s legitimate you’ve got to wonder how fragile peoples income is versus outgoings … a few price hikes and people can’t afford housing. The standards of living have seriously hiked in the last couple decades but wonder how much is on loan. Mobile phones, subscriptions, new cars every 3-4 years. A future generation has to catch it.
2 things from me. 1. Im very fortunate to be up near the top 10% but watching inflation rates and not having a payrise in 5 years makes that wage shrink very quickly, especially as the cost of living skyrockets. 2. The rich like to make the bottom 75% of earners argue and fight amongst ourselves while they pay themselves huge bonuses and no doubt use as many tax loopholes to keep as much of it as they can. I wonder what the paid incone tax SHOULD be if it was all paid properly!
But does the top 1% feel much different to the top 10%? If you have worked your way there throughout your life please tell me. I am (also German) in the top 10-20% at the age of 25 and it doesn't really feel like it.
@@abcxyzsven Hi Sven! It took me almost 30 years to get to the 1% and I basically started from scratch. It doesn´t feel dramatically different to when I was around the 10% mark but it allows me to provide an excellent education to my daughter and that is very rewarding. The key to happiness is to understand that living below your means and building a decent investment portfolio to ensure peace of mind and independence is what really counts.
Several factors can improve your earnings, a well paying industry in a good location and a high skilled sub-industry. I'm a 30 year experienced IT systems admin working central London at a financial services company, that mix pays very well indeed, plus you get perks like paid gym memberships, private healthcare for your whole family, generous pensions usually starting around 12% non-contrib. I made a beeline for London when I was 21 years old back in the early 1990s 'cos I knew that's where the money was.
You shouldn't use price inflation to calculate real wages. You should use the inflation of the money supply, ie the BOE balance sheet. Which effectively means you should be factoring in the debasement of the currency which has been occurring on average at about 15% per year.
Politicians use and want you to use the RPI. Currency should be valued against it's ability to buy scarce and desirable assets. Housing, Gold, Technology Stocks, and Crypto. Those are the assets where most of the increase in money supply has gone into over the past decade. If you look at a chart of the BOE balance sheet against the price of housing you will see that it is almost an exact match. It's just a fact once you deep dive into real macro statistics that the currency supply has been increased at a rate that far exceeds general price inflation for which non enlightened people use the RPI as a metric. The take home is that money has been consistently devalued since 2008 and will continue to be. It's the only option the government has with regards to the elephant in the room. The national debt. ...Kicking the can down the road hoping that increased productivity will save them, but it assumes that the world will continue to buy our debt. That game changed tho when the US decided to weaponise the dollar.
I actually love that very few people get it. ..The biggest investment gains come when someone understands something that 95% of people haven't got a clue about and then use it to their advantage. So I'll stop speaking facts and just look at my ROI and smile 😀
@@guy35451 yeah, me too. I stopped work 5 years ago aged 51 and just let my investments pay for my lifestyle. I'd say it's even greater than 95%. I think closer to 99% of people work through their fifties, rather than allocate time how they choose.
Was surprised at this. But confirmed what i already knew, to be rich you're not working a job, unless you are an MP and expensing everything. You always think a payrise will get you so much more, but it never does.
Interesting point is that pensions, rent & investment income incur no NI, while ISA income is entirely tax free...I know of a pensioner making £75,000pa and paying under £5,000 in tax.
The Manchester and Trafford comparison shows the issue with averages - just look at the house prices across the two areas. Only the likes of Didsbury and Chorlton would compare. Suspect the same issues elsewhere as well that only local knowledge would spot
Yes Prestwich and Radcliffe - £100,000 difference in house prices despite only being a few tram stops away 3 mile. Compare Wythenshawe and the other side of the airport and your talking a £200,000 difference. Middleton (Langley) & Middleton (Rhodes) - massive differences.
Really puts things into perspective, especially if you're a high earner, to be grateful for what you have. I've gotten about 3% payrise in the past two years but when considering I'm 30 and the salary with bonuses is around £90k it's nothing to complain about. Though it's depressing to see that monthly figure - almost half of my income goes towards tax, NI, student loan and pension. Tax is fine but the current government are pocketing so much of it with no benefit, would much rather donate that to charity
I would say your bang on about the public sector pay. Always seems to be dragging behind and with inflation the way it is, doesn't help at all. If I didn't have a pension to top up my wages, I would definitely be on the lower end of the scale. Lifestyle is a major factor on how money is managed so there could be a lots of scenarios in where lower wages cover all there wants and needs and then higher wage earners could be living month to month. Thanks for the data though Toby, always nice to compare.
Thanks as always! We know nobody goes in the public sector to be rich, but I would at least like to see any public sector job to at least keep pace with inflation otherwise you are quite literally losing buying power year over year.
@@adm58sure but many of us pay a higher percentage of our income than many other workers, mine is 12.9% and I pay AVC’s at £6500 per year which is the maximum. When I start receiving my pension, I won’t have much time for folk when people say I have been given it because I was a public sector worker, I achieved it through sacrifice.
@@adm58 This is true. At 36, I know that come state pension age (if it still exists), I will combine my defined benefit with the state pension to get 55% of my current ~£60k salary (in today’s money). I for sure want to build up more to be considerably more comfortable in my retirement, but it’s nice to know that I have a liveable “not less than” amount confirmed before turning 40. The flip side is that in 18 years in the public sector, my real terms pay for my current level is 35% lower than it was 18 years ago. Including a number of 0% pay increases during the austerity pay freezes.
If you were to compare true value of public sector DB scheme accruals with the 5% DC contribution most private sector workers get from their employers, the gap really narrows. I often seen public sector employees complain that this isn’t true as they have to contribute but I don’t think many of them are pension experts who truly understand the value of DB accrued income (for the record, I am).
I've always striven to earn more every year than the previous year. It hasn't always worked that way but this year I've earned more than I ever have (by a long way), and I'm in my 50's. I aim to continue to do this, whether it's through my day job or crypto but I'm not expecting to tail off as I get older as your statistics seem to show
Working for a London company but working remotely and living in a cheap area is where it is at! I currently do this and it is serving me well. That is where you really have a lot left after all the bills every month. £72k for London isn't all that impressive in the grand scheme of things regarding London wages, but outside it is a huge amount, and as shown here it is considered top 10% of wages. So so many of those people earning that kind of money must be working in London I'd bet. If you are getting paid that kind of money (£72k) but live somewhere cheap in the south west for example, you are living like a king!
Problem with the cpi is that how it is now calculated has changed as inflation is running out of control. Calculate it the old way over 2 years and close your eyes!
I start saying that I live in London. 70/100k doesn’t feel rich, they feel just a good job as employee after 10/15 years of career. If you earn 70k per year, you are not going around in a Ferrari or having 2/3 home, or a yatch. I’m afraid that on this numbers there are all the salaries, even young people that work while still home. I’m curious to see what is the average salary of the +25yo, that would be more the real worker. Also people that are on universal credit and can work 100h per month shouldn’t be included because their salary is low not for the jobs value. I’m sure that if you clean the statistics the average salary will be above 50k that sounds more normal.
I started my post graduate first full time job in 2001 on a £28k base and rapidly to £32k, then moved up to £55k by 2003 when I moved. It’s somewhat mind blowing to me that 20yrs later the average is so far below that, because I certainly didn’t feel rich on such a level, and a single man in my 20’s in London. The reality is that the average person is average and will never be rich not financially secure, sad but true.
The top 10% of earners pay around 60% of income taxes and the top 1% around 30%. The share of taxation for the top 1% is higher than at any time since the 2nd world war. The first 75% of earners less than 15% of income taxes. 39% of adults pay no tax at all and 55% of households receive more in benefits than they contribute in taxes. Some people still say taxation isn’t progressive enough? What do they expect I wonder in all honesty.
Nice video. I am always intrigued as to where we sit on these measures. In the top 10%, but with a sensible mortgage (£650/month almost paid off). Feel comfortable in the context of we can afford to live our lives as we like, take holidays, pay for meals out, buy new clothes etc... do we feel rich? No, are we surrounded by people that seem way richer? Yes, do we need more? Not really. I am more content that i enjoy my job and it isnt too stressful, and have time to do things outside of work, I would not swap my job for more earnings, its not "worth" it. Time is more precious.
Most people don't understand the economic concept of productivity. It is not how hard an individual works, but how productive they are in a period of time. Let me explain as that is crucial difference. If you are a carpenter and you only have a manual saw and a hammer, and you compare yourself with another carpenter with a double mitre saw and electric nail gun you will see that the first carpenter will be much less productive even though he will have to work much harder. The next concept is the education of the workers, if you take a nurse on the lowest level of experience they can only do certain jobs, and others they will need supervision - requiring the time of a second person. A more senior nurse is more productive as they can both do more difficult task, do not need supervision, and can make decisions on the fly without referring to other staff. So now you see that productivity on a economic scale of a country is primarily based on investment in tools and facilities to enable staff to do jobs more efficiently, and investment in education as this allows each individual to contribute more to the economy. One reason the UK productive of the UK has fallen behind comparable economies is the lack of investment in education (at all levels), and the lack of investment by companies in technologies that allow them to compete on the international scale. Another point that affect productivity is infrastructure. Consider a sales person that has to drive around to clients. If the roads are bad, with traffic jams, pot holes they will take longer to travel, maybe only visit 2 prospects in a day, not 3; suddenly the productivity of that sales person has been cut by 1/3 because of poor roads. Infrastructure covers all sorts of things, electricity capacity , roads, rail, internet speeds, crap postal service; they all limit the ability of a person to do their job effectively - so affect their productivity.
£71900 does not feel like rich to me… No mortgage, no loans, driving a 15 year old car, and earning significantly more than that threshold and I feel like I’m just getting by! 😂😂😂
I’m a high earner, and the tax burden was not something I really expected - it’s vast. It’s not just the raw income tax. You loose all allowances, tax relief on pensions, everything. I’ve worked my arse off to get here as I now have to support two parents that ran out of money (didn’t have pensions) - and two other adults plus myself. People think many high earners are rich, I go pay check to pay check and will be in trouble 3 months after job loss. Oh, and I drive a cheap hyundai, take one 8 day holiday a year (so I’m lucky there) but don’t get to save (my effective tax rate is circa 59% when you work it out) - and I have a complex blood disease. I’m not asking people to feel sorry for people earning more, but realise that it’s not always brilliant and every person is different. Everyone has their demons! We should all support each other imho.
You had me until you started hinting that the highest earners are underappreciated... I think you should consider *disposable* income more: If we compare a £120k with a £40k annual salary, you could say that 120 is only 3 times as much as 40, so they're only 3 times as rich. Meanwhile, they will have many times the *disposable* income, once all the bills are paid.
As well as income tax, student loans scale with salary. I'm pretty well off (not top 1% though), and at it's peak, my student loan repayments were more than my mortgage. My senior colleagues couldn't understand that even with a high salary, if you bump off 1000s for tax, then mortgage, then student loan, hardly any of it hit my bank account.
5% guaranteed tax free income from cash ISA. If you put £20k in you get £1k a year in interest. Add that up over time and it's actually not that different to income from renting out a property. Of course property appreciates whilst cash depreciates, but still it's a good way to earn something whilst saving up
I suspect I'm around the top 5% of earners (at age 35....pat on the back for me!), but I don't feel rich. I notice I can walk into a shop and buy something without too much thought, but I don't have a big house, a nice car (I drive a 13 year old Corsa!), or buy branded clothing or go on expensive holidays. The tax bill sucks, but I try to keep earnings below the 60% trap at £100k by increasing pension contributions and taking advantage of other tax efficient schemes, like purchasing additional holiday. I can imagine some people reading this getting reading to throw some "privileged" comments my way, but I guess being rich is subjective. For me, the real rich people don't even have earnings, they have time and large investments that pay them handsome dividends.
I'm in a similar position, I'm not quite in the top 1% and I don't have kids but I definitely don't feel rich. I work outside of the UK and don't have a company pension so everything for my retirement has to be proveded for by myself but that aside I don't feel rich by any means. Very comfortable without a doubt but I definitely can't stop working and I would only have to stop earning for a few months to start to feel the pinch and start to withdraw investments that are intended for retirement. Like several others have already highlighted, my idea of rich is people who don't have to rely on employment to live comfortably. If you have sufficient passive income to ensure you have very comfortable standard of living then I would class you as rich. People in these positions are generally able to navigate the taxation system more effectively to minimise what they give away to the government.
I’m with you on this one, I now fall into the top 10% but it’s far from Rich! Some one once told me it won’t make you Rich but it will make some purchases a little easier.
And the tax tiers have been unchanged since 2019, therefore pushing people into higher tax brackets as their pay went up. This is why I just put it all into my pension so I pay less tax
So I live outside London and in the south and I'm nearly making enough to be in the top ten percent. I'm also poor with a house that needs loads of things doing to it, which I can only afford because I bought it as a wreck. I drive a 15 year old car and am struggling to afford a holiday to Spain for the Mrs and I. The UK truly is a rich country full of poor people. I do however keep a 20/30 grand slush fund to use incase my business goes quiet. The thinking is this will pay down my btl mortgage a bit or simply be put into the S&p500. This might make me seen a bit richer but these assets are essentially my pension.
£215k for the 1% is a massive increase on estimates from just a few years ago which i think were around £150k... The fact the 1% are the only group getting real terms increases is everything wrong with this country
One thing that people forget about cost of living rises Vs inflation is tax. If inflation is 6% and your pay increases 6%, you are stillworse off because you have less spending power
I know this gets mentioned a lot but I feel it’s important. The average car payment per person in the uk is around £400 per month. Despite the multitude of excuses people make for this it’s absolutely not a need and keeps people on all incomes poor… who couldn’t do with an extra £400 a month spare cash.
No one in the top 1% is only making a 4% pension contribution…. Most will be stuffing loads in to avoid the ridiculous marginal rates of tax at that level
As a software engineer, yes the salary is great but the tax bill is always a wowza!! Especially living in Scotland. I get why, but its eye watering at times.
I wonder if PAYE data includes earnings before adjusted net income. Higher earners are more likely to salary sacrifice into their pension for example, so their income looks lower than it is.
In the real pay calculation you should also include the extra tax payable due to the boundary figures not going up with inflation (i.e more people falling into high earner status )
This! The frozen tax brackets (in the US for example they are bumped up by IRS automatically without the input from politicians) is a real killer. It makes comparison difficult as the after-tax income is influenced by many things (child tax credits after 50k mark, voluntary pension contributions etc).
Great video! Really informative. Particularly the bits around proportional tax contribution. Another interesting one that people are always surprised by is the one earner versus 2 earners in a relationship. Ie the take home of one earner on £130k+ versus two people on £45k is not nearly as different as people would think! Would love to see you break it down in your style
Wages in all sectors are shockingly disgustingly low in this country, my wife and I have had a lot of experience earning money in California and Florida.
The calculation for take home pay of the top earner after the pension contribution is wrong. From MSE's tax calc the take home pay is £9,822 after paying a tax bill of £6,474. This is before January's NI change.
Interesting but a few thoughts and observations… I suspect two people in the same household earning £50k each will have more real pay than one earning £110k The jump of 25% at c£50k to 10% at c£71k then to 1%to £211k looks odd at less than double to climb 15% but triple to get up the next 9% is that really correct? Even Cx of most local authorities for instance would not make the top 1% despite having maybe 5-10000 staff and annual income over £300m to manage!
I contract through my own company but also i have separate business line through it too but its very small, however most of my income goes to it and i take a fairly small payment to myself. So recently looking at my company bank statements i been handling more money than ever but i feel no better off yet
@@TobyNewbatt I’m not sure, but I remember looking at the ONS data before and thinking their descriptions could be interpreted that the £37k number _is_ the household number, but that it’s their measure of “disposable” income (ie. after tax/NI, so not truly “disposable”).
My earnings are good (comfortably in the 15% bracket) but because I’m a single person household living somewhere which is not a cheap as it used to be - I still have to have very tight controls on what I spend.
These videos are always eye opening. Even the top 10% salary band isn't going to get you anything close to the archetypal image of rich - fancy car, big house etc although clearly you could live comfortably. To be "rich", I think you'd need to be earning excess of 250k given the effect of tax on income but this is obviously subjective.
I agree. I have a few neighbours who've let slip what they earn and even those who are earning over 100k are spending all of their take home pay these days with big mortgage payments, private school tuitions and the 2 fancy cars on their driveways. Even for people who appear to be very comfortable the thing to watch out for is lifestyle creep and how it eats up your income; private school fees are something I'd certainly be cutting back on as the state schools in our area are all rated as excellent.
@@TsLeng At the same time though, not as far as you might think! I think, if anything, it buys more security without going so far as unabridged comfort and luxury. eg. Could you happily max out pension contributions, have decent income protection insurance, max out £40k of ISAs (~£3.3k/mo), pay all fixed and variable accommodation costs? Probably, but you wouldn’t have _that_ much left over for discretionary spending. Don’t get me wrong, netting £8.5k a month is a lot of money (a good deal more than we get); but I can see how it might _feel_ that it’s just “ok”. Remember, there are a lot of 6 figure earners living month to month.
What surprised me, but probably shouldn’t have done, is that there are over 2 million people in the top 10% of full-time earners. That’s still more people than I can imagine. The top 1% is still a lot of people too. You’d need 3 large football stadiums to seat them.
Rich isn't about income, it's about wealth.
Conversely, I knew a guy so poor, the only thing he had was money
Indeed, it was recently found that wealth is being earned more through inheritance rather than income.
Most people think rich is 10-20% more than they earn.
In reality, if you earn a salary (barring the top few %, possibly) you're probably not rich!
@@stephenbury7297 You arent rich if you bought something because it was 2 for 1 deal.
Disagree: the primary purpose of wealth is to provide income.
I think you need to do the analysis as London and rest of the UK. London skews the data
It does indeed but thats why Median average is much more useful than Mean average as it removes the issues somewhat. Maybe a follow up where data is available :)
@@TobyNewbatt good point
@@TobyNewbatt Not really as 90% above the median average are in London meaning if you removed it the median would massively shift. You basically have to remove London for the figures to work for anyone.
@@TobyNewbattthat would be cool to see!
Though salaries in London are higher, the cost of living is disproportionately higher for the bottom half.
00:14 📊 The UK median income stands at £28,863 annually or £2,334 monthly, encompassing both full-time and part-time workers across all age groups.
01:39 💰 To be considered "rich" in the UK, an income of around £100,000 is necessary, though this figure varies based on location and living expenses.
03:02 📈 Real wage increases have fluctuated over the last two decades, with noticeable impacts from events like the global financial crash and the COVID-19 pandemic.
04:42 💼 The top 25% of earners in the UK require an income of approximately £49,974 or above, comprising around 5.93 million individuals.
05:57 💵 To be in the top 10% of earners in the UK, anincome of around £71,900 annually is needed, translating to approximately £5,991 per month before taxes.
10:33 💸 Membership in the top 1% of UK earners requires an income of approximately £217,800 annually or £17,640 monthly gross, with a take-home pay of £10,192 after taxes and pension contributions.
100k a year does not make you rich, it makes you employed in a decent job
Ooooh, I only just miss out on the top 1%. Must be time for a pay rise!
@@siheath3648 in 170 years "living" and eating at the mama hotel will get you what the top 1% has NOW as wealth (7.6M GBP median).
Im in the top 1%. Honestly I don’t feel rich, I feel far from it to be honest.
@@anyexpatthat’s funny mate. Sure maybe not in London but anywhere else I regard that as rich as possible.
Interesting thanks. I was on a very good income, but the downside was long hours and high deductions for tax and NI. I was fortunate enough to plan early retirement at 52. My income dropped to a third of my salary, but when taxes and expenses were considered, I didn't feel much worse off financially and my time is my own........ I did try a bit of freelance work briefly, but quickly realised the money wasn't worth the stress. I did plan this, but I also consider myself fortunate to have been able to do it.
I am glad you pointed out the impact of Tax and NI - plus you are fully exposed to wider taxation. The bit I hate is that my take home pay around 30k, was about 2k per month, I am beyond doubling the annual salary now, but I have not had a month where I take home 4k per month. Which shows the dragnet effect of direct taxation.
Good to hear of someone who retired at 52, I am 54 now, and my retirement options even with a healthy pension are 67....
Great video, thanks. The NHS ain’t gonna get me to that 1% so I’m relying on you youtube. I just need to increase my youtube income by [checks notes] 1200%. Easy!
Good luck mate!!!
Hahaha well at least you arent working as a climate scientist 😂
Hope you voted against the contract
I think “rich” is an interesting term. At 71k a year, being in the top 10% it is unlikely the person would be classed as rich. Unlikely they will have kids in private school or be jetting around all the time. Their life will be comfortable if they manage lifestyle creep. If you are outside the top couple of %, “Rich” comes from wealth built up and passed down rather than salary income.
Depends how old you are too. If you are under 25 I'd say 71k a year was rich for sure whereas if you were 40 or 50 maybe not so much.
@@LawrenceTimme this is an important point. I am 52 an in the top 10% but it doesn’t feel like it. I feel very much average.
Very few "rich" people are getting paid PAYE.
Agree, I’m on far higher than that but also have a wife and two kids to maintain too within my salary. I’d consider myself comfortable but far from rich currently.
@@tombfc123Very true, most earn in other ways.
The more you earn ( salary ) the more you pay via PAYE is correct but with more disposable income it leads to a greater chance of claiming some of that tax back via tax efficient investment schemes such as pension contributions or EIS / SEIS investments. If you are on circa £50k and have a young family / mortgage you won't have much if any investment income to make the most of these efficient schemes and that's the key difference I think as it will shift the actual amount paid in tax after self assessments are filed.
absolutely, you do have a lot more options - you could say that the UK is very friendly towards high earners when you think about it adding up all of the ISA/ SIPP/ EIS options you can choose.
If you're on 50k with a young family there's a good chance you'll be in the top 10% when your kids have grown up. Where you are now is not where you'll be.
This is so wrong. 10% of people earn around 100K and after tax is only 60K. It deliberately limits the imagination of middle class.
Just go down to Marbella and walk along the quay and listen to the conversation on board. Most of them are British. Not Arabic, not American but British. The cost of keeping a yacht is 10-20% of the vlaue of it. The 1% won't be in Marbella. They will be in Sardinia or south of France.
Therefore, how can so many British people have so many yachts on 60K a year?
This is why these figures are wrong.
@@ExiledGypsythe people with the yachts dont have a job and earn income they have assets
Simple. Those people with yachts are clearly not on PAYE!
Annual pay vs monthly intake post tax and deductions
35k = 2218 net
37.5k = 2371 net
40k = 2523 net
52k = 3153 net
75k= 4297 net
96k = 5359 net
Not so great in Scotland 😢
@@pistopitpit what are the wages like ?
@@Abdul_Rahman86 lower than in England and you have higher income tax. But as the counterweight life is slightly cheaper in comparison to England, still bloody expensive though.
Tax is too high in the UK. My friend moved to HOng Kong. His salary is 100k and he nets 85K
Tax is inefficient in the UK, it's not that it's a bad thing. Middle earners are squeezed whereas the wealthy aren't taxed enough
Glad to see a balanced view toward high earners.
People earning less often forget how much tax needs to be paid when earning a higher income.
I'm an additional rate tax payer, at the end of day I take home just over 50% of my salary and all benefits and personal allowances are gone
@@winston022 yeah that’s pretty harsh. The worst part is just before the additional tax rate. Saw someone run the numbers and it’s basically 60% tax between 100-120k
@@hockysa pretty much. Worst part is we can't even complain publicly because everyone thinks we're rolling in dough 😄
@@mattyward1979Good on you. Smart with the pension although there is a trap there as well since tax-free amount is frozen and LTA might be reintroduced. This year I'll manage to put 35k into my pension.
Litterally half the viewers of this channel : “this cant be what the middle feels like”
I'm very interested to see peoples thoughts as I suspect feeling 'rich' or wealthy is very subjective
Indeed. I feel wealthy though I live a very simple minimalist life in a rented studio flat in Manchester (I'm 65 and now retired, in the sense that work is optional). The reason I feel wealthy is because, once the state pension arrives in a few months, I'll have ample income to cover my living costs plus I have savings invested for any additional expenses. Basically, not having to work to earn unless I choose to is wealthy to me.
@@adm58 very well said
When I used to be a fully qualified registered nurse in the NHS. My take home pay was £1750.00 net pay.
@@Abdul_Rahman86unfortunately income is not linked to how hard you work or the skills you have. Nurses and teachers are prime example of this.
I spent 25yrs in the military as a PAYE wage slave but built up a portfolio of properties (each time I came back from an Operational Deployment with £ in the bank I bought a house) at the same time my wife (who's a midwife) started a company supplying bank nurses.
Clearly covid send the nursing business to stratospheric levels to the point she now does that full time and no longer works as a nurse.
In short we're now extremely well off (on paper) and live a very enviable lifestyle. But we've worked our butts off for 30yrs and taken some crazy risks to get here so I have no issues with the fact we're easily inside the top 1% figure.
Two more years to go and we'll be selling up and seeing out our time somewhere a lot warmer than Cheshire!
Being your own boss and maximizing tax efficiency is the only way to go.
The risk element is a bit factor isn't it. Good on you guys and hope to do the same move to the sun one day! 😅
@@benj6244 - it really is.
Most of our risks have been balanced and judged but once we went all in on a seemingly crazy hunch and it paid off massively. That one move secured our future..
But we were mid-30s and figured that if it didn't work we'd have enough time left to start over and go again.
There's no freaking way I'd take that chance now! 😁
The sad thing is you just couldn't do that anymore
@@stevencalvert9454 - UK tax law is designed to get money out of 95% of the population, the key is learning how to get into the other 5%!
But you're correct, the way I set up my property company almost 30yrs ago isn't allowed nowadays and a few of the reinvestments and capitalisation methods I used are also no longer legit.
In many respects I was just lucky with the timing in starting this when I did.
Well done!!! It is often easy to envy top earners however many have sacrificed and invested a lot.
In 1999, I was working in London as a contract business analyst for Merril Lynch on £550 a day. I left as the uk taxes were too high (circa 55% as I had to pay employer NI too) and went to Luxembourg and got paid double with much lower taxes. 25 years later though, I see rates aren’t much different in the uk.
Yep very high rates and lower standard of living , makes you think doesn't it
You can’t compare a tiny country like Luxembourg to a big and complex one like the UK
It's shocking how low salaries are in the uk. You have to remember we pay lots of tax after paying tax on your take home salary; council tax, fuel tax etc. How do people save for pensions, and buy cars, and holidays ? Credit? Life time of debt?
Toby, I definitely do not under estimate the level of thought and time spent preparing for this video. Really great work mate!
Thank you :)
As a beef farmer in Derbyshire,,we are extremely well off,,,but it's ALL tied up ,,you can't physically spend it..But money in the bank doesn't mean ""rich"" money is only a means to a end...Family is much better to have than cash.
You may be interested to find the figures for total net wealth in the UK too (as opposed to income). I did it a couple of years ago, I can't remember the figures, but it was surprising to find just how little it took to be in the top 10 or 20%. I think I remember that it only took about £3.8 million to be in the top 1%. As that is total wealth including property, pensions, savings, investments, businesses, etc. I think a lot of people that seem rich based on their homes etc must have a lot of debt otherwise they'd easily be in the upper brackets. I also recall that the very wealthiest had much more tied up in businesses and higher risk investments.
yes indeed I've done videos before on this as wealth is different to income :)
I know this is for PAYE but it would be great to find a way to include incomes that are not PAYE.
I’m a small business owner and my PAYE salary is £12.5k and I pay the rest in dividends (to pay less tax) and obviously most small business owners do the same. There are an estimated 5.5 million small businesses all with company directors that can legally not pay themselves through PAYE to avoid paying larger taxes.
Because of this I would weight/slant all of those averages up by a few grand each bracket.
Should also be remembered that the average private sector employer is paying 5-8% of salary into an employee's pension whereas the equivalent value in the public sector is 25-30%.
Those public sector pensions are not as valuable as they were a few decades ago but still hugely better than in the private sector. As someone who did a decade in public and two decades in private, i know the value of both. A few years back, when annuity rates were awful, I'd have needed a pension pot of nearly £400k to get an annuity equivalent to my relatively modest £7k public sector pension.
I can't remember who said it, but it's not what you earn, it's what you keep for true wealth. I hear countless stories of people in the supposed top 10%+ bracket who live pay to pay... mind boggling really when you look at the monthly take home pay...
Agreed. I'm 30 and have friends in London who make £50-60k, which to me sounds like a huge amount of money. But their income tax, rent, bills, student loan repayments, travel, and general cost of living mean they aren't able to save all that much. The jobs are stressful, and they live in ramshackle flats in dodgy areas, with noisy neighbours and bad air quality. And to keep making that amount of money they need to stay in London, where they currently have no hope of buying a home. Commuter towns are not even much cheaper when you calculate the train fares and time spent travelling. It all takes a toll on their physical and mental health.
I only make in the low £20k's, but am lucky enough to have moved back in with family in the midlands, just paying my own food and share of the bills, and am able to save about half my paycheck, which goes straight into an index fund. It's far from an ideal living situation, but paradoxically I've never felt such an immense sense of freedom and optimism. In a few years I should be earning a bit more and will have saved a hefty deposit for a small house.
This is so so true!
@@thegrinderman1090Too true had a couple mates in London making between 100-150k at one point. One was pretty open and showed me his take home pay was “only” around 70k. Their studio flat rent was around 3k a month. Meaning around three quarters of their income had gone on tax and rent alone. The idea of owning any property in or around London was still miles off for them without a partner on similar income. Jobs were stressful too. They’ve both changed to lower paying, less stressful ones.
Try paying for 3 lots of private school fees and a big mortgage the “high salary” doesn’t go very far!
@pmtilbury6596 Well, that comes down to a subjective discussion of life choices. Either, don't have kids or don't send them to private school and look for a cheaper living arrangement perhaps?
The charts for income from savings interest and dividends are particularly interesting!
Very interesting. I'd probably fall into top 2 or 3% but that's happened in the last few years as cost of living has gone up. We're lucky and have decent house, cars holidays etc but as you mentioned in your last comments, we don't feel like big earners. I don't know how people in the "middle" are managing atm. Especially once you get a family, feels like constant bleeding of cash.
I probably earn slightly less than that middle bracket with my basic pay (I'm a single, 45 year old psychiatric nurse; for context). Sure, money can be tight at times but I don't drive and don't have children and I think that's a huge factor in why I don't feel the pinch as much as some of my peers.
For me it's all about scaling back and managing my finances efficiently. I used to earn more years ago when I was in management, yet I was no more comfortable than I am now because I spent more because there was more to spend.What I do have in abundance now, is time to invest in my hobbies and visiting friends and family more than I used to. I work three 13 hour shifts a week, and can pick up overtime across the NHS trust whenever I want if I need to, there's never a shortage. That being said, I rarely do because I'd rather be off the clock than on it, enjoying myself. Most of my high earning friends are never off the clock, they work huge hours and are constantly emailing or picking up calls outside of work time, or just simply highly stressed because they can't switch off. I definitely don't feel like my life is any less rich because of my annual income.
Imo all these data points are misleading. First thing is the difference between london and ex-london. Second is income from earning vs income from other sources.
The wealth gap is much larger than the earnings gap but earners are paying most of the tax.
100% agree, completely undifferentiated. If you live in London the cost of living (food, transport, nursery/school fees etc.) is multiples of outside London. Income from employment is taxed at stratospheric levels
@user-si7fj5rh5unot sure what you are trying to say with your comment? Of course one saves and invests but that has nothing to do with affordability of daily life and tax rates (=net take home pay)
It’s not so much about your income but what your outgoings are that is a true measure of wealth… in other words, it’s not what you have at the beginning of the month, but what you’re left with at the end of the month that you save.
Thanks for the interesting video. My humble observation is that higher wages do not buy you quality of life anymore in the UK. I recently moved to Oxford from continental Europe with a PhD degree and 10+ years of experience in engineering. I got a very decent salary which (by extrapolating data from the video) would probably put me in top 5% earners in the UK. My quality of life is lowest in years, however, due to the 3 main factors: inflated prices and rent for low quality houses, dysfunctional public healthcare (enormous queues in my local NHS branch), comparatively bad (and expensive) public transport and roads (outside of London). Again, this is just my observation as a foreigner.
Very true. Agree with that. There has been real decline in living standards in the UK in the last few years.
I will add these points: 1) This excludes non-pay income and benefits. The public sector will have non-apy perks equating to 30-50% of their income - eg guarnateed pension, sick & maternity pay, longer holidays, etc. An average nurse on £350,000 would need aorund £45,000 to buy the perks in the private sector. 2) Those earning £100,000 to £125,000 will pay around 65% in tax & NI for this band of income.
As a certain rival economics podcaster highlighted recently, it's wealth that needs to be taxed. Many multimillionaires with huge property estates pay proportionally very little tax
We already have wealth taxed. Actually multiple times. It's taxed on death when it's passed to the next generation. And let's remember that any new wealth acquired must have been taxed at the point when it was earned via the income tax.
We have a household income of over 80K and we are not feeling rich just normal and not having to worry that much about bills . I am in the top 15%(over 60K/year) and my wife(over 20k/year) is in the lower end .
It’s all interesting but not having self employed in here is the issue.
I’m PAYE and in the top 10%. I’ve lost most child care funding and with NI pay over 50% back to HMRC.
I know self employed people who are much wealthier as they earn from dividends and run car etc through the business.
So all I’ve learned is I’m the idiot for paying tax others aren’t paying
I'm similar, in the top 10% bracket. My eyes water at my tax deductions. I'm very grateful for higher wages but it's only in the last year I got bumped up from a much more modest amount. I definitely don't feel well off.
The best way to see how little you earn is to take your last payslip and divide the net pay by 30.
That's how much you have to live on per day. Has to pay for everything, including your future years where you don't want to work.
Tiny, isn't it?
I would say it’s lower than expected compared to US incomes. The median household income of the top 10% group in 2022 was $390k, median of the 80-90% group was $189k according the federal reserve. We are below that $189k household, but with two working parents and decent jobs, getting over $150k is doable for lots of people. Lots of room to save and invest with that amount, assuming you have a low mortgage rate locked in (big if). One downside is the potentially high cost of healthcare when you need it though.
And you would need to take out an average of 4% that goes to pension. And possibly, quality of life. Europeans tend to start at 25 days off a year which increases depending on age. Then there's maternity leave etc. All these small, but important quality of life stuff. And maybe also what can you buy in the supermarket for that income. I find EU supermarkets cheaper and higher in quality compared to the US, but that's been a while ago. Just my thoughts.
I'm 38, live in the home counties of London on 140k excluding bonus, but get salaried on 90k. The reason being that I put 50k into pension to avoid the 60% tax bracket (Tax free allowance reduction + higher tax bracket). Although a high earner, you do not realistically feel like one as you do not see the 'extra' cash in your account, but the pension pot is growing.
I think being able to salary sacrifice into a home might be a good way to fix housing affordability - I would happily take a tax break if I can offload a bunch of my income into a house that I live in
The WEF will not allow you to keep it!
Be careful, Labour have already said they will bring back the lifetime pension cap…
Don't you pay tax on the pension when you take it anyway?
I honestly cannot comprehend how a single person can survive on average salaries in Britain. My household is about 110k before tax and (admittedly pretty high) pension contributions. I have a peugeot and vauxhall in the drive and live in a very modest 3 bed with what i imagine is an average mortgage. 2 kids. I get a holiday a year and eat out a couple of times a month. I definitely do not feel and better off than 'comfortable'
That's is just crazyyyyy, life in the uk is just bs
Where does it go?
@@duncanbananatyne3890the cars. Mortgage, utilities😂😂
You use UK and England as interchangeable. Tax is higher in devolved areas of UK.
Very interesting. As an expat working in the US, it is remarkably different to what I expected. Median salary does not seem to have gone up much since I left over 20 years ago. A little depressing!
Yes I’m a nurse and I get paid hardly anything. My pay has only gone up by £400 in my hand in my monthly pay in 20 yrs
We've had lots of immigration which has helped to suppress wages at the lower end of the spectrum.
I left in 89 making £10k … and glad I did… no way I’d be making the same in the UK 35 years later ..
It explains Brexit
@lesleyrobertson5465 got to call BS on that quick Google says you was on about 17k 20 years ago and 34k now. So can't believe 17k or 100% payrise is £400pm
This clearly only cover employee workers only. There are lots more 1% rich earners who will be hiding their wealth in limited companies.
Indeed which Is why I specifically say in the video its for those on PAYE only :)
Thank you, very interesting and informative video. I hope some senior members of the Labour Party take note of your final section, it doesn’t matter how much higher earners pay in tax, the Labour Party always wants more!
I used to be quite anti labour party. However under the Tories I'm taxed more than anyone since ww2.
I fail to see how labour could make it worse?
The joke I have amongst other landlords is, how could labour possibly fuck us over more than the Tories, they've had the lot already.
@@bogstandardash3751indeed. the Tories have become the true champions of the stealth tax.
@@bogstandardash3751 true, the current mob calling themselves Tory seem to have forgotten the low tax/small state philosophy of the Conservative party.
That being said, things will only get worse under Labour !
@djsconsulting how soon we forget Liz Truss! :-) Well, we'll soon find out if Labour are little-Britain liars like the Tories. Let's face it, they couldn't do worse - and the country needs a change.
Great analysis as always. Rich people don't earn a wage so this data does not reflect real wealth in the UK. There are loads of business owners and sole traders who aren't declaring enough of a wage to pay higher rate tax but drive Range Rovers and have big houses.
Indeed this is just tax payers and there is a huge amount of wealth outside of these stats
And lots that don't
Household of £59k and £39k… we are able to absorb the CoL situation right now, but we are certainly noticing it! We certainly don’t *feel* like a top 12% household [feels like it] should, but objectively know it to be true.
Same me and my lady. Every time I go out from the supermarket, I feel like I got robbed pal
A lot depends on the debt levels one has. Mortgages are crippling many now but those who don't have a mortgage and have no other debts / own outright aren't being affected much.
@@ep1929 I don’t agree, the cost of living increase over the last couple of years is noticeable if you have paid any attention at all to your groceries spend (for example). Ok, this who are wealthy enough not to bother looking at prices of grocery shopping won’t be aware of it, but they likely are wealthy enough that they wouldn’t notice an impact.
As for us, our mortgage isn’t crippling, it’s actually very conservative relative to what many say. About 17% of our household net. We still notice that things are expensive and trending up, even if we are able to absorb it.
@@ScottishJazzman monthly outgoings gone from £625 to £661 this year - that's for everything (mortgage and debt free).
@@ScottishJazzman "paid any attention" - I watch my expenses like a hawk. That's how I keep costs ultra low and that's why I haven't noticed it much.
Brilliantly delivered. Thanks! My estimate of the top 1 percentile threshold was 190K. If you look at director’s emoluments of most companies around the UK, it’s around that mark but I am a bit dated on my stats.
Thanks for watching
Thanks Toby. Another great video with great design and info graphics.
I don’t have the tools to simulate one investing strategy that I would like to see explored. Maybe you think it could make a video about it. So here it goes:
I understand the DCA vs selling at high and buying at low comparisons and surprisingly it doesn’t pay to time the market.
What about the strategy of:
Buying a global fund (VWRP) for example and go all in the year after a negative return. Then stay invested for 2 years. After those two years put money in cash interest earning accounts (could do 3 or 4% interest for the simulation). Get back on the global fund after the next negative year.
(This is to test that after a negative year normally there are at least 2 years of positive returns)
thanks for the idea!
The bit missing is the "Actual Rich" - those who have hundreds of millions of equity, or even Billions. Would be interesting to see how much of their money they actually pay tax on & whether it correlates to the amount of tax that normal people are paying. I suspect it is very very little & a much smaller % than the rest of us. I also suspect because of this, its very difficult to find out what they don't want us to see...
You don’t bank percentages
It's true. They have lots of cash in a cave, wear a top hat and sit on that pile of cash cackling.
Genuinely gobsmacked I’m classed as being in the top 25%, earning 51k a year, I live about 20 minutes from you, without divulging to much information we have a really good rugby league team and visit Old Trafford most years, so I obviously don’t live in Warrington, really informative video and I was extremely surprised by the numbers.
You can prob live a lot better off there also than with that money in say london!
Imagine how those earning less feel. I get £4,070.40 a year to live on since becoming disabled following an accident. No one wants to hire you, even with a degree.
@@LiquidMarvel Get into IT. we have people in my company that are disabled and work from home.
@@LiquidMarvelsorry to hear that. Without knowing your exact situation I've always thought it a bit strange for employers to overlook the disabled especially in the tech age of working on the computer. There should be a vast amount of jobs that can be remote on pc and if I was an employer I'd be fighting for someone who would be incredibly motived to sit and do pc work all day and would be an employee for life. Didn't mean that to sound as cringe as it came out I hope you get the point.
Imagine being cagey about where you live but literally putting your FULL NAME AND DATE OF BIRTH as your username LOL
Hello @ Toby - the numbers for inflation are incorrect they say 4% but the actual rate of inflation is in the region of 6.4% so a raise of 6% is still a pay cut of .4%
The inflation numbers that are cascaded do not take housing costs into account - be it rent or mortgage; seeing as that makes up a huge proportion of typical household expenditure the figures lack full consideration without this.
I was on £33k 8 years ago and now earn about 4x that (so not quite in the 1%). Some of my observations along the way:
- Taxes eat up a lot of my income; my direct taxes are now higher than the median salary. I also observe that tax thresholds have not kept pace with inflation at all.
- Housing costs eat up a lot of income too. The top paying jobs are invariably in London, which means living in the London commuter belt (can't afford a decent house in London) where property prices are very high. The dream is to have the same job with the same pay but up in the North East, but that's not feasible for most.
- Lifestyle inflation is very much a thing, it's unavoidable to some extent as you do want nicer things. However, I still shop at Aldi and Tesco and I bought my car used to avoid wasting money on unnecessary stuff. I've also stopped buying lunch or coffees at work, inflation since the pandemic has made these far too expensive now.
- The truly rich don't figure into this analysis at all since they don't actually need a job for income.
Toby,, good video to get an update on the latest figures. But it's worth pointing out that salaried people on PAYE are rarely rich. Being in the top 10% of earners does not make someone wealthy. At the lower end of the spectrum, in-work benefits can actually push up someone's net income to be equivalent to what someone on a £50k salary would take home after tax. At the other end, earning £70k might put you in the top 10% of wage earners but won't put you in the top 10% of all forms of income such as dividends. Anyone on £70k will testify that they are not living a life of luxury especially with the cost of housing. In fact from a household income perspective, someone on £70k is only a little above the median for a family. Comfortable maybe, but not rich.
Indeed which is why I did a video a while back talking about wealth and not earned income 😎
Got to love official figures source data.
I do wonder how many of the local residents roll around in the expensive cars, holidays and phenomenal costly houses whilst indulging whim purchases. I suspect a lot is cash in hand. And where it’s legitimate you’ve got to wonder how fragile peoples income is versus outgoings … a few price hikes and people can’t afford housing. The standards of living have seriously hiked in the last couple decades but wonder how much is on loan. Mobile phones, subscriptions, new cars every 3-4 years.
A future generation has to catch it.
2 things from me.
1. Im very fortunate to be up near the top 10% but watching inflation rates and not having a payrise in 5 years makes that wage shrink very quickly, especially as the cost of living skyrockets.
2. The rich like to make the bottom 75% of earners argue and fight amongst ourselves while they pay themselves huge bonuses and no doubt use as many tax loopholes to keep as much of it as they can.
I wonder what the paid incone tax SHOULD be if it was all paid properly!
Yeah, I made it to the top 1% 😀but rest assured, taxes in Germany are as sobering as they are in the UK. 😵
But does the top 1% feel much different to the top 10%? If you have worked your way there throughout your life please tell me. I am (also German) in the top 10-20% at the age of 25 and it doesn't really feel like it.
@@abcxyzsven Hi Sven! It took me almost 30 years to get to the 1% and I basically started from scratch. It doesn´t feel dramatically different to when I was around the 10% mark but it allows me to provide an excellent education to my daughter and that is very rewarding. The key to happiness is to understand that living below your means and building a decent investment portfolio to ensure peace of mind and independence is what really counts.
Several factors can improve your earnings, a well paying industry in a good location and a high skilled sub-industry. I'm a 30 year experienced IT systems admin working central London at a financial services company, that mix pays very well indeed, plus you get perks like paid gym memberships, private healthcare for your whole family, generous pensions usually starting around 12% non-contrib. I made a beeline for London when I was 21 years old back in the early 1990s 'cos I knew that's where the money was.
You shouldn't use price inflation to calculate real wages. You should use the inflation of the money supply, ie the BOE balance sheet. Which effectively means you should be factoring in the debasement of the currency which has been occurring on average at about 15% per year.
RPI includes currency movements ... The price paid for the import of raw materials gets fed into the price paid by consumers for the final end product
Politicians use and want you to use the RPI. Currency should be valued against it's ability to buy scarce and desirable assets. Housing, Gold, Technology Stocks, and Crypto. Those are the assets where most of the increase in money supply has gone into over the past decade. If you look at a chart of the BOE balance sheet against the price of housing you will see that it is almost an exact match. It's just a fact once you deep dive into real macro statistics that the currency supply has been increased at a rate that far exceeds general price inflation for which non enlightened people use the RPI as a metric. The take home is that money has been consistently devalued since 2008 and will continue to be. It's the only option the government has with regards to the elephant in the room. The national debt. ...Kicking the can down the road hoping that increased productivity will save them, but it assumes that the world will continue to buy our debt. That game changed tho when the US decided to weaponise the dollar.
I actually love that very few people get it. ..The biggest investment gains come when someone understands something that 95% of people haven't got a clue about and then use it to their advantage. So I'll stop speaking facts and just look at my ROI and smile 😀
@@guy35451 yeah, me too. I stopped work 5 years ago aged 51 and just let my investments pay for my lifestyle.
I'd say it's even greater than 95%. I think closer to 99% of people work through their fifties, rather than allocate time how they choose.
Was surprised at this. But confirmed what i already knew, to be rich you're not working a job, unless you are an MP and expensing everything.
You always think a payrise will get you so much more, but it never does.
Interesting point is that pensions, rent & investment income incur no NI, while ISA income is entirely tax free...I know of a pensioner making £75,000pa and paying under £5,000 in tax.
The Manchester and Trafford comparison shows the issue with averages - just look at the house prices across the two areas. Only the likes of Didsbury and Chorlton would compare. Suspect the same issues elsewhere as well that only local knowledge would spot
Yes Prestwich and Radcliffe - £100,000 difference in house prices despite only being a few tram stops away 3 mile.
Compare Wythenshawe and the other side of the airport and your talking a £200,000 difference.
Middleton (Langley) & Middleton (Rhodes) - massive differences.
Really puts things into perspective, especially if you're a high earner, to be grateful for what you have. I've gotten about 3% payrise in the past two years but when considering I'm 30 and the salary with bonuses is around £90k it's nothing to complain about. Though it's depressing to see that monthly figure - almost half of my income goes towards tax, NI, student loan and pension. Tax is fine but the current government are pocketing so much of it with no benefit, would much rather donate that to charity
I would say your bang on about the public sector pay. Always seems to be dragging behind and with inflation the way it is, doesn't help at all. If I didn't have a pension to top up my wages, I would definitely be on the lower end of the scale. Lifestyle is a major factor on how money is managed so there could be a lots of scenarios in where lower wages cover all there wants and needs and then higher wage earners could be living month to month. Thanks for the data though Toby, always nice to compare.
Thanks as always! We know nobody goes in the public sector to be rich, but I would at least like to see any public sector job to at least keep pace with inflation otherwise you are quite literally losing buying power year over year.
Public sector workers win big on the work defined benefit pension front though.
@@adm58sure but many of us pay a higher percentage of our income than many other workers, mine is 12.9% and I pay AVC’s at £6500 per year which is the maximum. When I start receiving my pension, I won’t have much time for folk when people say I have been given it because I was a public sector worker, I achieved it through sacrifice.
@@adm58 This is true. At 36, I know that come state pension age (if it still exists), I will combine my defined benefit with the state pension to get 55% of my current ~£60k salary (in today’s money). I for sure want to build up more to be considerably more comfortable in my retirement, but it’s nice to know that I have a liveable “not less than” amount confirmed before turning 40.
The flip side is that in 18 years in the public sector, my real terms pay for my current level is 35% lower than it was 18 years ago. Including a number of 0% pay increases during the austerity pay freezes.
If you were to compare true value of public sector DB scheme accruals with the 5% DC contribution most private sector workers get from their employers, the gap really narrows. I often seen public sector employees complain that this isn’t true as they have to contribute but I don’t think many of them are pension experts who truly understand the value of DB accrued income (for the record, I am).
Loving all the stats and detail. Probably a good idea to do an abridged version to highlight the points.
I've always striven to earn more every year than the previous year. It hasn't always worked that way but this year I've earned more than I ever have (by a long way), and I'm in my 50's. I aim to continue to do this, whether it's through my day job or crypto but I'm not expecting to tail off as I get older as your statistics seem to show
I'd like to see the percentage of total wealth held by the top 1%
I think it would be quite revealing.
Working for a London company but working remotely and living in a cheap area is where it is at! I currently do this and it is serving me well. That is where you really have a lot left after all the bills every month. £72k for London isn't all that impressive in the grand scheme of things regarding London wages, but outside it is a huge amount, and as shown here it is considered top 10% of wages. So so many of those people earning that kind of money must be working in London I'd bet. If you are getting paid that kind of money (£72k) but live somewhere cheap in the south west for example, you are living like a king!
Same here. WFH rocks.
Tax is horrendous in this country for those on reasonable wages. Two double take home pay you need to triple your salary after £50k . Its madness.
Problem with the cpi is that how it is now calculated has changed as inflation is running out of control. Calculate it the old way over 2 years and close your eyes!
I start saying that I live in London. 70/100k doesn’t feel rich, they feel just a good job as employee after 10/15 years of career. If you earn 70k per year, you are not going around in a Ferrari or having 2/3 home, or a yatch. I’m afraid that on this numbers there are all the salaries, even young people that work while still home. I’m curious to see what is the average salary of the +25yo, that would be more the real worker. Also people that are on universal credit and can work 100h per month shouldn’t be included because their salary is low not for the jobs value. I’m sure that if you clean the statistics the average salary will be above 50k that sounds more normal.
To be able to feel rich by being a PAYE, you should definitely be making at least 150K as gov takes more than half!
I started my post graduate first full time job in 2001 on a £28k base and rapidly to £32k, then moved up to £55k by 2003 when I moved. It’s somewhat mind blowing to me that 20yrs later the average is so far below that, because I certainly didn’t feel rich on such a level, and a single man in my 20’s in London. The reality is that the average person is average and will never be rich not financially secure, sad but true.
Tough especially in London too! But yes it's quite the eye opener
The top 10% of earners pay around 60% of income taxes and the top 1% around 30%. The share of taxation for the top 1% is higher than at any time since the 2nd world war. The first 75% of earners less than 15% of income taxes. 39% of adults pay no tax at all and 55% of households receive more in benefits than they contribute in taxes. Some people still say taxation isn’t progressive enough? What do they expect I wonder in all honesty.
Nice video. I am always intrigued as to where we sit on these measures. In the top 10%, but with a sensible mortgage (£650/month almost paid off). Feel comfortable in the context of we can afford to live our lives as we like, take holidays, pay for meals out, buy new clothes etc... do we feel rich? No, are we surrounded by people that seem way richer? Yes, do we need more? Not really. I am more content that i enjoy my job and it isnt too stressful, and have time to do things outside of work, I would not swap my job for more earnings, its not "worth" it. Time is more precious.
You must really hate the "poor" to be surrounded by those richer than 10 percenters.
The problem with the UK is that ppl refuse to be honest with themselves and question why median pay is so low in the UK. Answer productivity
Even if we're honest with ourselves and say that's true - then what?
Bone idleness?
No it's a overblown management level of employment in most firms .Non value adders to production but seriously put a dent in the wage bill.
Most people don't understand the economic concept of productivity. It is not how hard an individual works, but how productive they are in a period of time. Let me explain as that is crucial difference. If you are a carpenter and you only have a manual saw and a hammer, and you compare yourself with another carpenter with a double mitre saw and electric nail gun you will see that the first carpenter will be much less productive even though he will have to work much harder. The next concept is the education of the workers, if you take a nurse on the lowest level of experience they can only do certain jobs, and others they will need supervision - requiring the time of a second person. A more senior nurse is more productive as they can both do more difficult task, do not need supervision, and can make decisions on the fly without referring to other staff.
So now you see that productivity on a economic scale of a country is primarily based on investment in tools and facilities to enable staff to do jobs more efficiently, and investment in education as this allows each individual to contribute more to the economy. One reason the UK productive of the UK has fallen behind comparable economies is the lack of investment in education (at all levels), and the lack of investment by companies in technologies that allow them to compete on the international scale.
Another point that affect productivity is infrastructure. Consider a sales person that has to drive around to clients. If the roads are bad, with traffic jams, pot holes they will take longer to travel, maybe only visit 2 prospects in a day, not 3; suddenly the productivity of that sales person has been cut by 1/3 because of poor roads. Infrastructure covers all sorts of things, electricity capacity , roads, rail, internet speeds, crap postal service; they all limit the ability of a person to do their job effectively - so affect their productivity.
Are you insane 😂
£71900 does not feel like rich to me…
No mortgage, no loans, driving a 15 year old car, and earning significantly more than that threshold and I feel like I’m just getting by! 😂😂😂
I’m a high earner, and the tax burden was not something I really expected - it’s vast. It’s not just the raw income tax. You loose all allowances, tax relief on pensions, everything. I’ve worked my arse off to get here as I now have to support two parents that ran out of money (didn’t have pensions) - and two other adults plus myself. People think many high earners are rich, I go pay check to pay check and will be in trouble 3 months after job loss. Oh, and I drive a cheap hyundai, take one 8 day holiday a year (so I’m lucky there) but don’t get to save (my effective tax rate is circa 59% when you work it out) - and I have a complex blood disease. I’m not asking people to feel sorry for people earning more, but realise that it’s not always brilliant and every person is different. Everyone has their demons! We should all support each other imho.
You had me until you started hinting that the highest earners are underappreciated...
I think you should consider *disposable* income more:
If we compare a £120k with a £40k annual salary, you could say that 120 is only 3 times as much as 40, so they're only 3 times as rich.
Meanwhile, they will have many times the *disposable* income, once all the bills are paid.
My wife's boyfriend was really shocked by the figures.
😂
😂
As well as income tax, student loans scale with salary. I'm pretty well off (not top 1% though), and at it's peak, my student loan repayments were more than my mortgage.
My senior colleagues couldn't understand that even with a high salary, if you bump off 1000s for tax, then mortgage, then student loan, hardly any of it hit my bank account.
inflation is vastly underestimated imo, the cpi thinks that saving 15p on bread offsets the extra £200 on electricity bills.
5% guaranteed tax free income from cash ISA. If you put £20k in you get £1k a year in interest. Add that up over time and it's actually not that different to income from renting out a property. Of course property appreciates whilst cash depreciates, but still it's a good way to earn something whilst saving up
Exactly why we are considering moving to Manchester from London.
If you can keep the same job/ salary it’s a great life.
I know a few people who have done it and they say it doesn’t make a difference. But yes if you can hold your London job
I suspect I'm around the top 5% of earners (at age 35....pat on the back for me!), but I don't feel rich. I notice I can walk into a shop and buy something without too much thought, but I don't have a big house, a nice car (I drive a 13 year old Corsa!), or buy branded clothing or go on expensive holidays.
The tax bill sucks, but I try to keep earnings below the 60% trap at £100k by increasing pension contributions and taking advantage of other tax efficient schemes, like purchasing additional holiday.
I can imagine some people reading this getting reading to throw some "privileged" comments my way, but I guess being rich is subjective. For me, the real rich people don't even have earnings, they have time and large investments that pay them handsome dividends.
whats your career?
I'm in a similar position, I'm not quite in the top 1% and I don't have kids but I definitely don't feel rich. I work outside of the UK and don't have a company pension so everything for my retirement has to be proveded for by myself but that aside I don't feel rich by any means. Very comfortable without a doubt but I definitely can't stop working and I would only have to stop earning for a few months to start to feel the pinch and start to withdraw investments that are intended for retirement. Like several others have already highlighted, my idea of rich is people who don't have to rely on employment to live comfortably. If you have sufficient passive income to ensure you have very comfortable standard of living then I would class you as rich. People in these positions are generally able to navigate the taxation system more effectively to minimise what they give away to the government.
@@coachingconfidant2785 I'm a "Senior Construction Planner" working predominantly in London.
I’m with you on this one, I now fall into the top 10% but it’s far from Rich! Some one once told me it won’t make you Rich but it will make some purchases a little easier.
@@bliss8476 You will never be rich working for someone. the only way to be rich is to work for yourself. the statistics reflect this
And the tax tiers have been unchanged since 2019, therefore pushing people into higher tax brackets as their pay went up. This is why I just put it all into my pension so I pay less tax
So I live outside London and in the south and I'm nearly making enough to be in the top ten percent.
I'm also poor with a house that needs loads of things doing to it, which I can only afford because I bought it as a wreck. I drive a 15 year old car and am struggling to afford a holiday to Spain for the Mrs and I.
The UK truly is a rich country full of poor people.
I do however keep a 20/30 grand slush fund to use incase my business goes quiet. The thinking is this will pay down my btl mortgage a bit or simply be put into the S&p500. This might make me seen a bit richer but these assets are essentially my pension.
Median full time I was thinking 38k and top 1% I thought 200k - pretty close to the stats 😅 Thanks for the video 😊
£215k for the 1% is a massive increase on estimates from just a few years ago which i think were around £150k... The fact the 1% are the only group getting real terms increases is everything wrong with this country
One thing that people forget about cost of living rises Vs inflation is tax. If inflation is 6% and your pay increases 6%, you are stillworse off because you have less spending power
I know this gets mentioned a lot but I feel it’s important. The average car payment per person in the uk is around £400 per month. Despite the multitude of excuses people make for this it’s absolutely not a need and keeps people on all incomes poor… who couldn’t do with an extra £400 a month spare cash.
It's nuts to think that if you do the same job in America, they'll pay you double or triple your UK equivalent salary. 😮
No one in the top 1% is only making a 4% pension contribution…. Most will be stuffing loads in to avoid the ridiculous marginal rates of tax at that level
That sounds fun! I'm going to watch the other one, maybe. About Income equality
As a software engineer, yes the salary is great but the tax bill is always a wowza!! Especially living in Scotland. I get why, but its eye watering at times.
I wonder if PAYE data includes earnings before adjusted net income. Higher earners are more likely to salary sacrifice into their pension for example, so their income looks lower than it is.
In the real pay calculation you should also include the extra tax payable due to the boundary figures not going up with inflation (i.e more people falling into high earner status )
This! The frozen tax brackets (in the US for example they are bumped up by IRS automatically without the input from politicians) is a real killer. It makes comparison difficult as the after-tax income is influenced by many things (child tax credits after 50k mark, voluntary pension contributions etc).
Great video! Really informative.
Particularly the bits around proportional tax contribution.
Another interesting one that people are always surprised by is the one earner versus 2 earners in a relationship. Ie the take home of one earner on £130k+ versus two people on £45k is not nearly as different as people would think!
Would love to see you break it down in your style
Thanks for watching and the idea too
Wages in all sectors are shockingly disgustingly low in this country, my wife and I have had a lot of experience earning money in California and Florida.
71894 is nothing in London and SE - max mortgage would be around 250k which wouldn’t buy you a decent house
Wouldn’t buy you anything
The calculation for take home pay of the top earner after the pension contribution is wrong. From MSE's tax calc the take home pay is £9,822 after paying a tax bill of £6,474. This is before January's NI change.
Interesting but a few thoughts and observations…
I suspect two people in the same household earning £50k each will have more real pay than one earning £110k
The jump of 25% at c£50k to 10% at c£71k then to 1%to £211k looks odd at less than double to climb 15% but triple to get up the next 9% is that really correct?
Even Cx of most local authorities for instance would not make the top 1% despite having maybe 5-10000 staff and annual income over £300m to manage!
Data is indeed correct Steve and it’s because wealth and income are concentrated in the hands of the very few hence the jump! Thank you for watching
I contract through my own company but also i have separate business line through it too but its very small, however most of my income goes to it and i take a fairly small payment to myself.
So recently looking at my company bank statements i been handling more money than ever but i feel no better off yet
How does this breakdown towards households?
I have no idea David, the data doesn't break down to households, I'm not sure we survey that here in the UK
@@TobyNewbatt I’m not sure, but I remember looking at the ONS data before and thinking their descriptions could be interpreted that the £37k number _is_ the household number, but that it’s their measure of “disposable” income (ie. after tax/NI, so not truly “disposable”).
My earnings are good (comfortably in the 15% bracket) but because I’m a single person household living somewhere which is not a cheap as it used to be - I still have to have very tight controls on what I spend.
These videos are always eye opening. Even the top 10% salary band isn't going to get you anything close to the archetypal image of rich - fancy car, big house etc although clearly you could live comfortably. To be "rich", I think you'd need to be earning excess of 250k given the effect of tax on income but this is obviously subjective.
Confirmed. 12% household here. We’re comfortable and secure; but very, _very_ far from extravagant.
I agree. I have a few neighbours who've let slip what they earn and even those who are earning over 100k are spending all of their take home pay these days with big mortgage payments, private school tuitions and the 2 fancy cars on their driveways. Even for people who appear to be very comfortable the thing to watch out for is lifestyle creep and how it eats up your income; private school fees are something I'd certainly be cutting back on as the state schools in our area are all rated as excellent.
Rich to me means 5 million plus a year
The secret is to have 2x top 10% earners. 😂 8.5k take home per month goes a long way.
But if childcare is involved, that's a notch down.
@@TsLeng At the same time though, not as far as you might think! I think, if anything, it buys more security without going so far as unabridged comfort and luxury. eg. Could you happily max out pension contributions, have decent income protection insurance, max out £40k of ISAs (~£3.3k/mo), pay all fixed and variable accommodation costs? Probably, but you wouldn’t have _that_ much left over for discretionary spending.
Don’t get me wrong, netting £8.5k a month is a lot of money (a good deal more than we get); but I can see how it might _feel_ that it’s just “ok”. Remember, there are a lot of 6 figure earners living month to month.
What surprised me, but probably shouldn’t have done, is that there are over 2 million people in the top 10% of full-time earners. That’s still more people than I can imagine. The top 1% is still a lot of people too. You’d need 3 large football stadiums to seat them.
Yes I always think this as well! That’s a huge number a big town or a small city worth.
you can walk through 50k a year after tax in the UK. Just a regular town.
Please make multiple videos with more details on this topic! I am in top 25% earners but still struggling to live comfortabl.