To sit in the UK’s top 1% of income you need £207,000 a year before tax.
That is the latest HMRC figure, and it puts you among roughly 360,000 people out of 36 million taxpayers.
But “top 1% of income” is one of the most misquoted numbers in the country. The answer changes depending on whether you mean a salary, total taxable income, or a whole household.
Here is the real ladder, what each figure measures, and a quick way to check where your own pay lands.
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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.
One thing to hold onto: this tool ranks salary for full-time employees, using ONS earnings data.
The famous HMRC top-1% figure counts all taxable income, not just salary, which is why the two thresholds below do not match.
The UK income percentile ladder
This is the table most guides skip.
It comes straight from HMRC’s Survey of Personal Incomes for the 2023-24 tax year, the most recent available.
| 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 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, percentile points for total income before and after tax, tax year 2023-24. UK individuals with a tax liability, not households.
The top 1% threshold has climbed fast: £183,000 in 2021-22, £201,000 in 2022-23, and £207,000 now.
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.
- Salary (ONS earnings data). A full-time employee’s gross pay. The top 1% by salary is roughly £170,000.
- Total income (HMRC, the headline figure). Salary plus self-employment, dividends, rent, pensions and savings. The top 1% here is £207,000.
- Household income (ONS). Two earners combined, across the whole population. A different measure again, with much lower thresholds.
And income is not the same as wealth. You can earn a top-1% salary and own very little, or own a fortune on a modest income.
For the wealth version, see what net worth puts you in the top 1% and average net worth by age.
What £207,000 looks like after tax
A top-1% income does not stay a top-1% income once HMRC has taken its share. After tax, the £207,000 threshold is worth about £134,000.
Everything above £50,270 is taxed at 40%, and everything above £125,140 at 45%, with the personal allowance tapered away by then.
Want your own figure? Run it through our take-home pay calculator.
The jump from the top 10% to the top 1%
The distance between the top 10% and the top 1% is enormous. The top 10% starts at £67,400, the top 1% at £207,000.
That is a £139,600 gap inside the same top tenth. For reference, £100,000 puts you in roughly the top 5%, with the top 4% line at £102,000.
Reaching the top 1% is a different league. See whether £100k is a good salary in the UK for where that number sits.
What jobs pay £200,000 or more?
These salaries are not only for bankers in the City, though plenty are. Most top-1% roles are specialists rather than general managers.
Roles at this level include cardiac physiologists, hair transplant surgeons, quantitative developers, lead app developers, private dentists and associate attorneys.
Add the usual CEOs, CFOs, vice presidents and sales directors across tech, finance, healthcare and insurance. A large share sit in London, where pay runs well above the rest of the country.
See a good salary in London and the average UK salary for the other end of the scale.
How many people are in the top 1%?
About 360,000 individuals, or 1% of the UK’s 36.2 million income-tax payers.
For context, around 950,000 people pay the additional 45% rate, and roughly 3.8 million UK households are millionaires.
Being a high earner and being wealthy are not the same thing. Wealth is built by assets and time, not by a payslip.
Income inequality in the UK
The gap here is not a gap, it is a chasm. The top 1% take home around £207,000 while the median taxpayer earns £29,700.
That is roughly a seven-fold difference, and it sits behind most debates about tax and social mobility.
It is worth remembering the income ladder and the wealth ladder are not the same picture. The lowest-income households are not always the lowest-wealth ones.
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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.
