UK statistics
Top 10% UK Salary: Where the 90th Percentile Sits
Full-time UK employees need gross pay of roughly £73,000 per year to be in the top 10% of earners by salary (ONS ASHE, 2024 annual estimates).
Headline numbers
- Top 10% salary threshold
- £73,000
- 75th percentile (top 25%)
- £52,000
- Median full-time salary
- £37,430
Full-time, ONS ASHE 2024
ONS ASHE 2024
50th percentile
The detail
ONS ASHE 2024 full-time workplace annual pay shows the 90th percentile at approximately £73,000 — meaning if you earn more than that, you're in the top 10% of UK employees by salary. £100,000+ puts you comfortably in the top 5%; £150,000 in the top 2%.
The ASHE percentile is a salary-only cut — it doesn't include self-employed earnings, dividends, or investment income. For total-income percentiles see HMRC Personal Incomes Statistics (used for the "top 1% UK" figure), which shows a fatter tail than ASHE because of dividend-heavy Ltd company directors and partners.
The distance between the median and the 90th percentile — £37,430 to £73,000 — illustrates the 2× "middle to rich" gap. Compared with historical data, this ratio has been stable for the last decade, even though nominal levels have drifted upwards.
Sources
- ONS Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings 2024 (retrieved 2026-04-19)
- Our methodology & full source list →
Related statistics
- Top 1%
Being in the UK's top 1% of income earners requires pre-tax income of roughly £180,000 per year (HMRC Personal Income Statistics, 2021/22 — the most recent complete dataset).
- 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.
- 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).