UK statistics
Median UK Household Income 2026
The median UK household has disposable income of roughly £35,000 per year after tax and benefits (ONS Households Below Average Income, 2022/23).
Headline numbers
- Median household disposable income
- £35,000
- Median household gross income
- £47,000
- Median weekly equivalised income
- £670/wk
Post-tax, post-benefit, 2022/23
Before tax and benefits
Adjusted for household size
The detail
ONS Households Below Average Income (HBAI) puts median disposable household income at approximately £670/week (~£35,000/year) in 2022/23, the most recent complete dataset. Disposable means after Income Tax, National Insurance and employee pension deductions, plus state benefits.
Equivalisation adjusts for household size: a £35k income supports a single person very differently from four people. HBAI publishes "equivalised" numbers for this reason — headline numbers in news reports are usually equivalised to a two-adult-no-children household.
Regionally, London medians are ~20% above national; the North East and Northern Ireland sit ~10% below. Within London the range is extreme — Kensington & Chelsea has median household disposable income nearly 3× the UK median, driven by a small tail of very high earners.
Note: ONS separately publishes weekly gross pay (ASHE), weekly gross household income (Family Resources Survey) and disposable household income (HBAI). They're all "average UK income" in casual speech but mean different things — mixing them up is how contradictory claims about "typical" UK earnings appear in the press.
Sources
- ONS HBAI — Households Below Average Income (retrieved 2026-04-19)
- Our methodology & full source list →
Related statistics
- Average UK Salary
The median full-time UK salary is £37,430 in the ONS 2024 Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings — the most commonly cited "average" UK salary.
- Poverty Line
The UK relative poverty line is 60% of contemporary median household income — approximately £21,000/year for a couple after housing costs. Absolute poverty fixes this threshold to a 2010/11 baseline uprated by inflation.
- What Counts as Rich
There's no official "rich" threshold, but HMRC data points commonly used as proxies: top 1% income (~£180k/year), additional rate tax band (>£125,140), or top 10% wealth (>£1m household).