Summary
The income percentile calculator tells you where your salary falls among UK full-time employees. If you are in the 75th percentile, you earn more than 75% of full-time workers. The calculator uses ONS ASHE (Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings) April 2024 provisional data, which covers gross annual pay for full-time employees in the UK.
How it works
ONS publishes percentile thresholds for full-time employee earnings through ASHE, the UK’s most detailed source on pay. The calculator takes your gross annual salary and finds where it sits in this distribution using linear interpolation between published percentile points.
The data
ONS ASHE provides earnings percentiles for:
- Full-time employees — gross annual pay from employment
- By age group — median, P10, P70, and P90 for each age band (from ASHE Table 6)
The calculator uses the overall full-time employee distribution by default. Selecting an age group adds a peer comparison.
Key percentile points (ONS ASHE April 2024)
| Percentile | Annual salary |
|---|---|
| 10th | ~£22,763 |
| 25th | ~£27,986 |
| 50th (median) | ~£37,430 |
| 75th | ~£51,391 |
| 90th | ~£72,150 |
| 95th | ~£92,000* |
| 99th | ~£180,000* |
* ONS ASHE publishes percentiles up to the 90th. The 95th and 99th percentile estimates are derived from HMRC Survey of Personal Incomes data, adjusted for the ASHE full-time employee population.
Why ONS ASHE, not HMRC?
Two government datasets measure UK income, but they answer different questions:
ONS ASHE (used by the calculator) surveys employers and covers full-time employees’ gross pay from employment. The median is approximately £37,430. This is the right benchmark for “where does my salary rank?” because it compares like with like — your employment income against other employees’ employment income.
HMRC Survey of Personal Incomes covers all individual taxpayers and includes employment, self-employment, pensions, investments, and property income. The median is approximately £30,000 — lower because it includes part-time workers, retirees on pension income, and people with small self-employment earnings. Comparing a full-time salary against this broader population inflates your apparent ranking.
Percentile vs average
The median (50th percentile) is lower than the mean because high earners pull the mean upward. The mean full-time salary is roughly £43,000 (ONS ASHE 2024), while the median is £37,430. Your percentile ranking gives a more accurate picture of where you stand than comparing to the average.
Worked example
Salary: £55,000 gross
- Look up the ASHE percentile table: £55,000 falls between the 80th (£55,912) and 75th (£51,391) percentile thresholds
- Interpolate: approximately the 79th percentile
- Result: you earn more than about 79% of UK full-time employees
Inputs explained
- Gross annual salary — your total annual salary before tax, from employment
- Age group (optional) — compare against your age peers using ASHE Table 6 data
Outputs explained
- Percentile ranking — your position from 1-100 among full-time employees
- “You earn more than X% of UK full-time employees” — a plain-language interpretation
- Distribution curve — an SVG chart showing the right-skewed shape of UK income distribution, with your salary and the national median marked
- Top X% — the inverse framing (e.g., “Top 21%” = 79th percentile)
- Age-specific comparison — when an age group is selected, shows your ranking among peers and the group median
- Period breakdown — monthly, daily, and hourly equivalents (based on 37.5h/week)
Assumptions and limitations
- ASHE covers full-time employees only. Part-time workers, self-employed, and those not in employment are excluded. If you are self-employed, HMRC’s data would be a more appropriate benchmark, but the distributions are not directly comparable.
- The data is provisional — ONS publishes provisional ASHE data in November, with revised figures the following year. Provisional and revised figures are typically very close.
- Regional variation is significant. £50,000 puts you at a much higher percentile in the North East than in London. The calculator uses national data only.
- The data counts individuals, not households. A household with two earners at £30,000 each has a different living standard than a single earner at £60,000, but both individuals would rank similarly.
- Age group data currently uses fewer data points (P10, median, P70, P90) than the overall distribution (P5-P99), so age-specific percentiles are less precise. ASHE Table 6 publishes additional percentile columns that may be incorporated in future updates.