A £30k income is near the middle of the taxpayer distribution
HMRC’s 2023/24 median total income was £29,700 among people with an Income Tax liability. A £30,000 salary, with no other income, sits just above that threshold. This comparison includes pensioners and self-employed people as well as employees.
Full-time salary is a narrower comparison
The full-time annual pay median in the 2025 provisional ONS series is £39,039. That group excludes part-time jobs and covers employees who had been in the same job for more than one year. Being near the taxpayer median and below the full-time salary median is entirely consistent.
Hours make a difference
A £30,000 salary earned across three days a week cannot be read in the same way as a five-day full-time salary. The age and region tools use annual full-time pay; they do not convert your hours or assign an hourly-pay percentile.
See the definitions and data limitations. Figures compare with the stated source years and are not inflation-adjusted forecasts.