To be in the UK’s top 1% of income you need £207,000 a year before tax, on HMRC’s latest actual figures.
The catch? That number is from the 2023-24 tax year, and pay has moved on since.
HMRC’s own projections put the line at about £230,000 for 2026-27, so most guides quoting £207,000 as “this year” are already behind.
Below we lay out both figures, the full percentile ladder, what the top 1% actually take home, and where your own pay ranks.
Table of Contents
The UK income percentile ladder
This is the full ladder, straight from HMRC’s percentile points table for 2023-24, the latest year of actual data.
It ranks every UK income taxpayer by total taxable income: salary, self-employment, dividends, rent, pensions and savings interest combined.
| Where you rank | Income before tax | Income after tax |
|---|---|---|
| Top 1% (99th percentile) | £207,000 | £134,000 |
| Top 2% (98th) | £145,000 | £98,300 |
| Top 3% (97th) | £118,000 | £83,200 |
| Top 4% (96th) | £102,000 | £76,100 |
| Top 5% (95th) | £93,600 | £70,600 |
| Top 10% (90th) | £67,400 | £54,300 |
| Top 25% (75th) | £45,000 | £39,000 |
| Median taxpayer (50th) | £29,700 | £26,600 |
| Bottom 25% (25th) | £20,800 | £19,300 |
| Bottom 10% (10th) | £15,700 | £15,200 |
Source: HMRC, Table 3.1a, percentile points for total income before and after tax, tax year 2023-24 (published April 2026). UK individuals who pay income tax, not households. After-tax figures deduct income tax only.
The new top 1%: what you need to earn in 2026-27
HMRC’s latest actual data covers a tax year that ended in April 2024. To fill the gap, HMRC publishes projections for the years since, and almost nobody quotes them.
On those projections, the top 1% line rises to £217,000 in 2024-25, £225,000 in 2025-26 and £230,000 in 2026-27, the tax year we are in now.
| Where you rank | 2023-24 (actual) | 2024-25 | 2025-26 | 2026-27 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Top 1% | £207,000 | £217,000 | £225,000 | £230,000 |
| Top 5% | £93,600 | £96,000 | £98,900 | £101,000 |
| Top 10% | £67,400 | £69,300 | £71,500 | £72,500 |
| Top 25% | £45,000 | £46,200 | £47,700 | £48,300 |
| Median taxpayer | £29,700 | £30,600 | £31,600 | £32,100 |
Source: HMRC, Table 2.4, income breakpoints for percentile groups. 2024-25 onwards are HMRC projections based on the 2023-24 Survey of Personal Incomes, and will be revised when actual data lands.
The headline for most readers: by 2026-27, £100,000 no longer gets you into the top 5%. The projected top-5% line is £101,000.
Treat these as HMRC’s best estimate, not a final answer. Projections assume pay grows in line with past trends, and they get revised once the real survey is in.
Where does your salary rank?
Want the quick version for your own pay? Drop your salary in and see your exact percentile against UK workers.
Tool by Gains App. If the calculator does not load, open it here.
Most of us have no idea where we rank, because we rarely talk about pay. In our own survey of 1,679 UK adults, 70% said showing a friend their bank balance would be more uncomfortable than showing them their screen time.
We built this calculator on ONS earnings data for full-time employees, so it gives a salary-only answer to the top 1% question. Here is what it returns at key salaries:
| Gross salary | You earn more than | Rank |
|---|---|---|
| £39,000 | 49.9% of full-time workers | Around the middle |
| £50,000 | 69.8% | Top 30% |
| £60,000 | 80.5% | Top 20% |
| £100,000 | 93.9% | Top 6% |
| £125,000 | 96.5% | Top 4% |
| £150,000 | 97.5% | Top 3% |
| £200,000 | 98.5% | Top 2% (the calculator’s maximum) |
Source: Gains App salary percentile calculator (UK ranking, full-time employees), read on 25 September 2026. The calculator models the top end from ONS earnings data, so treat the top rows as estimates.
On salary alone, even £200,000, the calculator’s maximum, only beats 98.5% of full-time workers. So the top 1% of full-time salaries sits somewhere above £200,000, in the same area as HMRC’s £207,000 total-income line.
The two measures count different things, as the next section explains.
Salary, income or household? Why the top 1% has three answers
Search this question and you will get several confident, different numbers. They are measuring different things.
- Total taxable income (HMRC). Salary plus self-employment, dividends, rent, pensions and interest, per person. This is the £207,000 figure, and it is the one most people mean.
- Salary only (ONS earnings survey). Employee pay, ranked against other employees. The ONS publishes this in detail up to the top 10%, so any precise “top 1% salary” figure you see is an estimate.
- Household income. Everyone in the home combined, usually after tax and adjusted for household size. Tools like the IFS “Where do you fit in?” calculator use this approach, which is why they give a very different answer to HMRC.
A couple on £110,000 each would not make the individual top 1%. On a household basis, they would sit far higher up the ladder than either does alone.
And income is not wealth. You can earn a top-1% income and own very little. For the other side of the coin, see our guides to top 1% wealth and net worth by age.
How many people are in the top 1%?
About 367,000 people. That is 1% of the UK’s 36.7 million income taxpayers in 2023-24, according to HMRC’s taxpayer numbers.
With the taxpayer count projected to hit 40.8 million in 2026-27, the top 1% grows to roughly 408,000 people.
Here is how thin the air gets as incomes climb:
| Total income before tax | Taxpayers | Share of all taxpayers |
|---|---|---|
| £100,000 or more | 1,564,000 | 4.3% (about 1 in 23) |
| £150,000 or more | 686,000 | 1.9% |
| £200,000 or more | 392,000 | 1.1% |
| £500,000 or more | 80,000 | 0.2% |
| £1 million or more | 26,000 | 0.07% |
Source: HMRC Survey of Personal Incomes 2023-24, Table 3.3 (taxpayers by range of total income). Our calculation of shares, using 36.7 million taxpayers.
For a sense of scale, 893,000 people paid the 45% additional rate in 2023-24. HMRC projects 1.29 million by 2026-27, largely because the £125,140 threshold is frozen while pay rises.
If you are weighing up a six-figure offer, our guide to whether a £100k salary goes far covers the day-to-day reality.
What £207,000 looks like after tax
A top-1% income shrinks fast once tax comes out. HMRC’s table puts the top-1% line at £134,000 after income tax.
If that £207,000 were all salary in 2026-27, outside Scotland, the maths looks like this:
| Amount | |
|---|---|
| Gross salary | £207,000 |
| Income tax | −£79,353 |
| National Insurance | −£6,151 |
| Take-home pay | £121,496 (about £10,125 a month) |
Our calculation using 2026-27 rates for England, Wales and Northern Ireland: no personal allowance at this income, 20% / 40% / 45% bands, NI at 8% then 2% above £50,270. Before any pension contributions or student loan.
That is an effective deduction rate of about 41%. Scottish taxpayers pay more, as Scotland’s bands and rates differ.
The painful bit happens earlier. Between £100,000 and £125,140 you lose £1 of personal allowance for every £2 earned, which creates an effective 60% tax rate on that slice.
Want your own number? Run it through our take-home pay calculator.
Does a top-1% income feel rich? What our podcast guests say
The numbers say £207,000 is elite. The people we have interviewed on The Money Gains Podcast paint a messier picture of life near the top.
Finance educator Timi Merriman-Johnson (Mr MoneyJar) told us six figures no longer carries the weight it used to, pointing to a wave of stories about HENRYs: High Earners, Not Rich Yet.
“I remember when 100k used to be like the pinnacle.”
Timi Merriman-Johnson (Mr MoneyJar), The Money Gains Podcast, September 2025
In the same episode, Timi shared a figure doing the rounds online: that around £45,000 puts you in the global top 1%. It depends heavily on how you measure it. Our calculator’s global mode adjusts for living costs in each country, and on that basis £45,000 beats about 93% of people worldwide, closer to the top 7%.
Either way, his point stands: a salary that looks elite on a world chart can still feel tight after UK rent and bills.
Financial adviser Emmanuel Asuquo, who has spent 19 years advising clients from Premier League footballers to families on the breadline, sees the same gap between income and wealth. Some of his clients earn six figures a week and still have nothing behind it.
“You think you’re rich, you’re not rich.”
Emmanuel Asuquo, financial adviser, on what he tells high-earning clients who have income but no assets. The Money Gains Podcast, August 2026
Carla Hoppe, a former City solicitor who founded financial wellbeing firm Wealthbrite, found the same pattern in a profession most people assume is sorted. Her team asked lawyers the ONS question of whether they could cover an unexpected £850 bill without borrowing.
“When we asked that same question to a bunch of lawyers lately, we came out with exactly the same result.”
Carla Hoppe, founder of Wealthbrite, The Money Gains Podcast, May 2023. 42% of the lawyers surveyed said no, matching the national ONS figure at the time.
The takeaway from all three: a top-1% income is a head start, not a finished job. What you keep and build matters more than the headline number.
The income lines that matter more than the top 1%
For most of us, the top 1% is a curiosity. The lines that actually change your finances sit much lower down, and several are frozen while pay rises.
| Income line | What happens | Roughly where it ranks |
|---|---|---|
| £50,270 | 40% higher-rate tax starts | Top 20% |
| £60,000 to £80,000 | Child Benefit clawed back via the High Income Child Benefit Charge | Roughly top 7% to 15% |
| £100,000 | Personal allowance starts to go, and you lose Tax-Free Childcare and the 30 funded childcare hours | Top 5% |
| £125,140 | 45% additional rate starts, no personal allowance left | Top 2% to 3% |
| £207,000 | The top 1% (2023-24) | Top 1% |
Tax bands are 2026-27 rates outside Scotland. Childcare and Child Benefit limits use adjusted net income. Rankings are our reading of HMRC’s 2023-24 percentile table.
Curious what a £60,000 salary looks like month to month? We broke down a real one in our video, How I Budget My £60,000 Salary.
The £100,000 line is the one to watch. A parent of young children on £99,000 can be better off than one on £105,000 once childcare support is counted.
Pension contributions reduce adjusted net income, which is why many people near £100,000 pay more into their pension to stay under it. It is worth checking your own numbers, or speaking to an adviser, before changing anything.
The jump from the top 10% to the top 1%
The top 10% starts at £67,400. The top 1% starts at £207,000.
That £139,600 gap sits inside the same top tenth, and it is far bigger than the £37,700 gap between the median taxpayer and the top 10%.
In other words, going from “middle” to “top 10%” roughly doubles your income. Going from top 10% to top 1% roughly triples it again.
£100,000 lands between the 95th and 96th percentiles, so in the top 5% today. The top 4% line is £102,000.
How the top 1% threshold has changed
The line has more than doubled this century, from £96,400 in 1999-2000 to £207,000 in 2023-24.
| Tax year | Top 1% starts at | Median taxpayer |
|---|---|---|
| 1999-2000 | £96,400 | £14,400 |
| 2013-14 | £159,000 | £21,900 |
| 2018-19 | £175,000 | £25,000 |
| 2020-21 | £183,000 | £26,300 |
| 2021-22 | £199,000 | £27,200 |
| 2022-23 | £201,000 | £28,400 |
| 2023-24 | £207,000 | £29,700 |
| 2026-27 (projected) | £230,000 | £32,100 |
Source: HMRC Table 3.1a (actual years) and Table 2.4 (2026-27 projection).
Here is the twist. Over the last ten years the median grew faster than the top 1%: up 36% since 2013-14, against 30% for the top-1% line.
Minimum wage rises lifted the bottom half, while the top end had a slower run outside the post-pandemic jump in 2021-22.
Who is in the top 1%?
HMRC does not publish a top-1% profile directly, but its 2023-24 personal incomes tables give a clear picture of the people earning £200,000 or more.
- Mostly men. 303,000 of the 392,000 taxpayers on £200,000+ are men, about 77%.
- Heavily London. London has about one in eight UK taxpayers but a third of all 45% taxpayers: 299,000 of 893,000.
- Higher averages in the capital. Mean total income in London is £61,200, against £41,900 across the UK.
There is no official “top 1% in London” threshold. Because London’s incomes run so much higher, the line to be in London’s own top 1% would be well above the UK figure. Treat any precise London number you see online with caution.
For what those salaries buy day to day, see our guide to London salaries.
What jobs pay £200,000 or more?
Very few jobs pay a £200,000 base salary. Most top-1% incomes are built from bonuses, profit shares, dividends or a mix of roles.
The common routes are:
- Senior roles in banking, trading and asset management, where bonuses often match or beat base pay
- Equity partners at law and accountancy firms, paid a share of profits
- Company directors and business owners, often taking dividends rather than salary
- Consultant doctors and dentists with significant private practice
- Senior leadership in tech, often with shares on top
What these have in common: income that is not capped by a pay scale. Compare that with the average UK salary to see how far the ladder stretches.
How much income tax do the top 1% pay?
The top 1% earned 12.4% of all taxable income in 2023-24 but paid 27.2% of all income tax, according to HMRC’s tax share figures.
That is about £75 billion of the £274 billion collected.
Go further up and it concentrates again. The 26,000 people with incomes over £1 million paid £27.7 billion, roughly 10% of all income tax on their own.
HMRC projects the top 1% share easing to 26.6% by 2026-27, partly because frozen thresholds pull more middle earners into higher bands.
The UK top 1% vs the US top 1%
If the UK’s top 1% sounds high, the US line is in another league. The latest IRS income statistics put the US top 1% at $675,602 of adjusted gross income in 2023.
At any exchange rate of recent years, that is well over double the UK’s £207,000.
| UK (2023-24) | US (2023) | |
|---|---|---|
| Top 1% starts at | £207,000 | $675,602 |
| Top 10% starts at | £67,400 | $187,608 |
| Top 1% share of income tax | 27.2% | 38.4% (federal) |
Sources: HMRC Tables 3.1a and 2.4; IRS Statistics of Income, Table 4.1, tax year 2023.
One big caveat: it is not like-for-like. The UK taxes people individually, while most married Americans file one joint return, so a US “top 1% return” is often two earners combined.
Even so, the gap is real. Top-end pay in the US, especially in finance and tech, runs far ahead of the UK.
Income inequality in the UK
The top 1% starts at £207,000 before tax, while the median taxpayer has £29,700. That is about seven times as much.
Tax narrows the gap but does not close it. After income tax, the top 1% still hold 9.2% of all income, down from 12.4% before tax.
Income is only half the story, though. Wealth is far more unequal than pay, and roughly 3.8 million households are UK millionaires on paper, many thanks to property and pensions rather than salary.
For every headline figure we track, from pay to pensions, see our money statistics hub.
How we worked out these figures
Every threshold on this page comes from primary government data or our own research, not other finance blogs.
- Percentile lines are from HMRC Table 3.1a, based on HMRC’s Survey of Personal Incomes, a large sample of real tax records.
- Projections and tax shares are from HMRC Table 2.4, which HMRC grows forward from the latest survey year.
- Headcounts, income bands and London figures are from HMRC’s 2023-24 personal incomes tables and Table 2.1.
- US figures are from the IRS Statistics of Income, Table 4.1.
- Salary-only rankings come from our own Gains App salary calculator, read on 25 September 2026.
- Survey data is from our UK Money Confidence Report 2026 (1,679 UK adults, April to May 2026).
- Quotes are from guests on our own podcast, The Money Gains Podcast, taken from the episode recordings.
These figures cover income taxpayers only. People earning below the personal allowance are not included, which pushes the median higher than a whole-population figure would be.
We update this page each spring when HMRC publishes a new survey year.
Key takeaways
- The top 1% of UK income starts at £207,000 before tax (HMRC, 2023-24, latest actual data).
- HMRC projects £230,000 for 2026-27, the current tax year.
- After income tax, the top-1% line is £134,000.
- On salary alone, a £200,000 salary beats 98.5% of full-time workers on our calculator, so the top 1% of salaries starts above £200,000.
- About 367,000 people are in the top 1%, and they pay 27.2% of all income tax.
- The top 10% starts at £67,400 and the top 5% at £93,600. £100,000 is top 5% today, but not by 2026-27 on HMRC’s projections.
- Salary, total income and household income give different answers, so check which one a figure uses.
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Disclaimer: Content on this page is for informational purposes and does not constitute financial advice. Always do your own research before making a financially related decision.
