Household incomes across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland

Household income in the UK is dominated by money from work. In 2023 to 2024, income from employment and self-employment made up 74p of every £1 of household income, according to the Family Resources Survey¹. In the following year, 2024 to 2025, the employment share was 72% of gross household income². The median household disposable income in the UK, the figure after tax and benefits that most people mean when they talk about take-home income, was £34,500 a year in the financial year ending 2023³.

The official measure used to compare incomes between places is gross disposable household income (GDHI), published annually by the Office for National Statistics for regions and countries going back to 1997⁴. On the average disposable income figures used in housing affordability analysis, England and Wales both stood at £37,000 a year in the financial year ending 2024, Northern Ireland at £36,000 and Scotland at £35,000, with the North East of England the lowest region at £32,362⁵.

Where household income comes from: 74p in every £1 from work

Most household income across the UK comes from employment and self-employment. The Family Resources Survey, which interviews a representative sample of private households across the UK, found that in 2023 to 2024 income from employment and self-employment continued to make up 74p of every £1 of household income¹. In 2024 to 2025 the share was 72% of gross household income². The remainder comes from state support (benefits including the State Pension), private and workplace pensions, investment income and other sources such as rent from property.

The headline figure most people recognise is the median: the income of the household in the middle of the whole distribution, with half of households above and half below. Median household disposable income in the UK was £34,500 in the financial year ending 2023, a decrease of 2.5% from the financial year ending 2022³. Disposable income here means income after direct taxes and including cash benefits, adjusted (equivalised) so that households of different sizes can be compared fairly.

The income figures move with the wider economy. Real household disposable income per head, the inflation-adjusted measure published in the quarterly sector accounts, increased by 0.2% in Quarter 2 (April to June) 2025⁸. That is a slow rate of growth, and it means living standards were broadly flat over that quarter rather than clearly rising.

Benefits play a smaller role in the average household's income than work does, but the share is not trivial. In the financial year ending 2017, the average amount of cash benefits received by households was £6,374 a year, which was 14.6% of average gross income⁹. That average hides enormous variation: pensioner households and those out of work receive far more of their income as cash benefits, while working households with higher earnings receive very little.

How the sources of income differ by region

The mix of income sources varies sharply between regions. In 2024 to 2025, the North East had the highest proportion of income from state support at 21%, while London had the lowest at 11%². A year earlier the pattern was the same at the top, with the North East again highest at 21%, though London's lowest share was then reported as nine per cent¹. The difference between 11% and 9% for London reflects the two different survey years rather than a disagreement about the method.

Private pensions tell a different regional story. The highest proportion of income from non-state pensions in 2023 to 2024 was 11% in the South West, a region with a large retired population, while the lowest was in London, where the population is younger¹. Northern Ireland sits at the higher end for state support: 20% of average gross household income there came from state support in 2024/25, comprising benefits including the State Pension¹⁰.

Government support during the energy price spike also had a strongly regional pattern. Analysis of UK government energy and cost of living support measures found that the yearly disposable incomes of the poorest tenth of households in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland were propped up by over 20% as a result of those measures¹¹.

Regional averages also conceal very large differences within regions. Modelled income estimates for small areas in England and Wales show that mean household disposable income before housing costs in local areas differed by £86,800 from the lowest to the highest in the financial year ending 2023¹². After housing costs, every region had at least one local area in both the top and the bottom disposable income deciles¹². In other words, no region is uniformly rich or uniformly poor: each contains neighbourhoods at both ends.

One technical point affects the regional comparisons. The affordability methodology notes that household income figures from the Household Finances Survey in London are lower than ASHE full-time worker earnings, because survey income covers all household members and all income types, not just one full-time wage¹³. This is one reason survey-based regional income figures can look different from pay statistics.

Housing costs across the regions: rent and mortgage payments

Housing is usually the largest single item in a household budget, and its size depends heavily on where you live. Average private rent was highest in London (£2,273 a month) and lowest in the North East (£770) in February 2026⁷. The gap persisted through the year: in May 2026 London was at £2,294 and the North East at £776¹⁴, and by July 2026 London was at £2,317 against £783 in the North East¹⁵. The North East also had the highest rent inflation of any English region, at 5.9% in the 12 months to May 2026¹⁴, so the gap between the cheapest region and the rest has been narrowing from a low base.

The Family Resources Survey gives a weekly view: London had the highest median weekly private sector rent at £345, which was £155 a week higher than the UK median². Affordability analysis using the financial year ending 2022 found that London was the only region or country where a median rent was more than 30% of a median renting household's income, at 35%, while in Yorkshire and The Humber the median rent was 23% of median income¹⁶. In Scotland, people living in the private rented sector have spent the highest proportion of their income on housing, 26%, of any tenure group at national level since 2006/07¹⁷.

For owners, the official poverty statistics measure income after housing costs (AHC) by deducting rent (including housing benefit), water rates and community or council water charges, mortgage interest payments, structural insurance premiums, ground rent and service charges¹⁸. Note that mortgage interest is deducted, but capital repayments are not treated as a housing cost in that measure. The ONS has published separate ad hoc breakdowns of household expenditure on mortgage interest payments by region, from 2007 to the financial year ending 2017¹⁹, and of household expenditure on capital mortgage repayments by region, from 2007 to 2014²⁰.

Buying a home is measured against income too. The ONS affordability methodology uses five times disposable household income, five years' worth of income, as a general indicator of an affordable property price¹³. On that basis, the ratio of average house price to average income in the financial year ending 2024 was 7.9 in England, 5.4 in Wales, 5.3 in Scotland and 4.6 in Northern Ireland⁵. England's ratio, driven by London and the South East, is far above the affordability indicator, while Northern Ireland's is close to it.

Owning, mortgaged or renting: tenure by region and nation

How a household lives, owning outright, buying with a mortgage, renting privately or renting from a council or housing association, shapes both its costs and its income statistics. The Family Resources Survey records tenure type, accommodation and mortgage details, rent, rates payments, household insurance, income, benefits, savings and investments among its topics²¹. Across the UK, the percentage of households in the private and social rented sector combined has remained broadly the same over the last seven years, at 36%¹.

Tenure and poverty are closely linked, but not in the direction many people expect. Of individuals in relative poverty before housing costs in 2021/22, 44% lived in homes owned outright, 21% in homes owned with a mortgage, 18% in the private rented sector and 17% in the social rented sector²². The high share in owned-outright homes reflects pensioners with low incomes but no rent or mortgage to pay. After housing costs, the picture shifts: 33% of those in relative poverty were in owned-outright homes, 27% in the private rented sector, 21% in the social rented sector and 20% owned with a mortgage²². By 2023/24, of individuals in relative poverty before housing costs, 40% lived in homes owned outright and 23% in homes owned with a mortgage²³.

Tenure also echoes down generations. ONS analysis of wealth in Great Britain from April 2018 to March 2020 found that, controlling for other factors, modelled mean wealth was £47,000 higher for individuals whose parents were buying or owned their teenage home than for those whose parents rented²⁴.

For renters trying to buy, government schemes set income limits. The Right to Shared Ownership guide states an eligibility requirement of £80,000 or less annual gross household income, or £90,000 or less in London²⁵. The two figures appear in the guidance as the limits outside and inside London respectively.

Savings and accounts: how many families have a cushion

Savings are what stand between a household and debt when income drops or an unexpected bill arrives. The most recent Family Resources Survey, for 2024 to 2025, found the proportion of families with no savings was 18%, a reduction of two percentage points from the previous year². A year earlier, in 2023 to 2024, 20% of families reported having no savings and a further 10% said they had less than £100; the proportion of families with less than £1,500 in savings was 48%, unchanged on the year¹.

Northern Ireland reports a somewhat stronger position. In 2024/25, 11% of households there had no savings or investments¹⁰, down from 15% in 2023/24²⁶. In Scotland, the Scottish Household Survey 2019 found that 17% of households where the highest income earner was aged 16 to 39 had less than £1,000 in savings²⁷. Evidence given to Parliament in 2017 put the position across the UK starkly: 29 per cent of UK households had just £500 or less of easily accessible savings²⁸.

At the other end of the distribution, savings now generate meaningful income for those with the largest balances. Scottish Government analysis of the cost of living crisis estimates that the tenth of households with the most savings wealth will receive an average of £20,000 each, before tax, from interest on savings²⁹. The ONS also tracks how much of household income the nation as a whole puts aside, in the households' saving ratio series³⁰, covered in more detail on the page about the household saving ratio.

Food security and food bank use in each nation

Food security is the sharpest test of whether income is enough to live on. In 2024 to 2025, 91% of households were food secure, and 1.4% of households had used a food bank in the 30 days before being interviewed². Food bank use in the last 12 months was reported by 3% of all households².

The risk is heavily concentrated. Households on any income-related benefit reported food bank usage of 4% within the last 30 days and 11% within the last 12 months, against 2% and 5% for households on non-income-related benefits². Households with children were more likely to have used a food bank, at 2% in the last 30 days and 6% in the last 12 months, as were households with one or more disabled adults, at 3% and 6%². Households whose head had Entry Level qualifications were the most likely by education level, at 4% in the past 30 days and 6% in 12 months².

Food security itself is lower among benefit recipients: households on any income-related benefit were less likely to be food secure, at 77%, than households on non-income-related benefits². In 2023 to 2024, households on any income-related benefit were also more likely to report low or very low food security, at 13% low and 17% very low, compared with all households¹. Among households with very low food security that year, 16% had used a food bank within the last 30 days and 30% within the last 12 months¹.

Regionally, households in Inner London were the most likely in England to have used a food bank in 2023 to 2024, at 3% within the last 30 days and 5% within the last 12 months¹. That fits the wider pattern of London: high rents and high housing costs press on incomes that are not proportionately higher for lower-earning households.

Disability and caring: how they shape household finances

Disability runs through the household income statistics in several ways. The Family Resources Survey follows the core definition of disability in the Equality Act 2010¹, and it records caring needs and responsibilities alongside income, tenure and expenditure on housing³¹. Among adults of State Pension age, the proportion who are disabled has remained between 42% and 46% in every year of the past decade¹.

One important limitation sits in the poverty figures. The Northern Ireland Poverty and Income Inequality Report states plainly:

This means the measured incomes of households containing disabled people are not reduced to reflect the extra costs of disability, so the figures can overstate how well off those households are relative to households without those costs.

Income inequality is measured by dividing households into ten groups (deciles) based on their disposable income, with decile 10 the highest and decile 1 the lowest³³. On that basis, in the financial year ending 2023, mean household disposable income for the richest fifth of households was six times greater than the poorest fifth, at £82,900 against £15,000³⁴. The most recent figures show the pressure at the bottom: in the financial year ending 2024, mean disposable income fell by 4.0% for the poorest fifth of households, compared with a 2.1% reduction for the richest fifth³⁵.

How household income is measured, and the limits of the figures

Two families of statistics sit behind everything on this page. The first is the Family Resources Survey (FRS), a continuous household survey collecting information on a representative sample of private households in the United Kingdom². It uses a stratified, clustered, random sample, designed to produce robust regional estimates but not suitable for analysis below regional level². It is a representative survey of around 20,000 households in the UK, with approximately 2,000 of these surveys taking place in Northern Ireland³²; in 2024/25 the Northern Ireland sample was 1,739 households³². The Department for Work and Pensions processes the Northern Ireland data on behalf of the Department for Communities, as part of the UK-wide dataset³².

The survey aims to interview all adults aged 16 or over in each household selected²¹. In 2024/25, 80% of Northern Ireland FRS households were interviewed face-to-face³²; across the UK in the financial year ending 2024, the face-to-face share was 86%³⁶. The total non-response rate is typically around 50%, which the methodology does not consider unreasonable for a voluntary survey of this kind³⁷. Responses are weighted (grossed) using CALMAR software provided by the French National Statistics Institute, with calculations updated to use 2011 Census data, and a back-series exists for each FRS year back to 2002/03³⁷. Results are published with a confidence interval of the estimate plus or minus two standard errors, at 95% cent confidence, and statistical reports flag cases where an amount is greater than four standard deviations from the mean³⁷.

The known weakness is benefit income. Relative to administrative records, the FRS is known to under-report benefit receipt³⁸. The causes are respondents not reporting that they receive a benefit, respondents understating the amount received, and the survey sample not fully capturing all benefit recipients³⁹. This matters because the FRS has been the main source of data for household income and poverty measurement for Great Britain since 1994/95³⁹.

A second, separate improvement is that National Insurance Numbers can now be found for more than 95% of respondents, up from just over 50% previously, which makes the linkage to administrative records possible³⁶. The FRS was launched in Great Britain in October 1992 and was extended to Northern Ireland in April 2002²¹. Anonymised FRS datasets are available to registered users at the UK Data Service²¹.

The second family is regional gross disposable household income (GDHI), annual estimates published for UK International Territorial Level regions, local and combined authorities, and other economic regions⁴. These are official statistics, produced impartially and free from political influence⁴. The two measures answer different questions: the FRS asks households what they receive, while GDHI is built from regional accounts to compare total income between places.

Where to find the data for each nation

All the underlying figures are published free. The ONS publishes regional gross disposable household income on gov.uk, with the latest release covering 1997 to 2024⁴; the previous release covered 1997 to 2023⁴⁰. In Wales, StatsWales publishes a Gross Disposable Household Income by area and measure dataset, provided by the ONS, covering UK regions and countries and Welsh sub-regions from January 1997 to December 2024, with 10,575 rows of data, first published on 15th January 2026 and last updated on 21st August 2026, with the next update expected in September 2026⁴¹. It is designated an official statistic in development⁴¹.

For Northern Ireland, NISRA publishes Family Resources Survey reports for 2024/25 and 2023/24 on its datavis site¹⁰, and information about the survey itself, including who to contact, is on the NISRA find-your-survey page²¹. Northern Ireland's poverty and income inequality statistics are also changing: the Department for Communities has announced changes to how they are produced, linked to the benefit linkage described above³⁹.

For free, impartial help with living costs and income, MoneyHelper, run by the Money and Pensions Service, offers guidance on benefits, budgeting and debt, and the pages on benefits in the UK and debt help on this site explain the options. The cost of living crisis page sets out what happened to prices from 2021, and how poverty and low income are measured covers the poverty measures used in the figures above.