Earning a six-figure salary used to mean you’d made it, but with tax traps and inflation, £100,000 has now become the threshold for ‘struggling’ in the capital.
For decades, that salary was the ultimate psychological milestone of professional success. A gateway to a detached house, a fancy car, private school and a couple of foreign holidays a year.
But as three financial experts point out, that dream may be over.
Freddie Winter of Gratitude Financial Planning told Metro: ‘I work with a lot of professionals in your typical high-earning careers earning over that threshold, and the overriding feeling is “it shouldn’t be this hard”.
‘£100,000 is no longer considered a high salary’
‘People may be getting their tiny violins out… but the fact is that in today’s economy, earning £100,000 annually is no longer enough to be considered a high-paid job.’
He points to inflation, frozen income tax thresholds, and high property prices as reasons why his clients are struggling to get on the housing ladder in London.
To reflect this, he proposes a new metric: A high salary should be four times the national average. Based on the latest Office for National Statistics data, that would work out at £154,128 – in London the figure rises to £187,200.
‘You’re a top earner if you’re paid £80,000 plus’
Chartered accountant Abigail Foster places the threshold slightly lower between £75,000 and £100,000.
She notes that while the ONS figures show a median monthly salary of £2,588, earning over £80,000 puts a worker in the top 10% of UK earners.
She said: ‘I talk a lot about HENRYs, High Earners Not Rich Yet. These are professionals on big salaries who still feel financially stretched because of housing costs, childcare, student loans and lifestyle inflation, particularly in London and the South East.’
How much does the average Brit earn?
According to the ONS, the average median monthly salary as of January 2026, is £2,588, which works out as £30,696 per year, before tax.
For those who are paid weekly, the average is currently £735 per week, which is £38,532 per annum, without deductions.
In comparison, for the nation’s top earners, the median annual pay was as much as £4.58 million for the 2024/2025 financial year.
Abigal also warned of a ‘tax reality’ that catches many people off guard. ‘For every £2 you earn over £100,000, you lose £1 of tax-free allowance,’ she said.
‘That creates an effective 60% marginal tax rate between £100,000 and £125,140. It catches people out all the time.
‘But feeling wealthy depends far more on your costs, location, and whether you’re building assets, not just earning income.’
‘You can’t put a number on success’
Financial specialist Vivian Tu, founder of Your Rich BFF, thinks earning £75,000 used to be the ‘gold standard’, but it’s lost the status it once held.
Instead of focusing on a specific figure, she has an alternative way of looking at wealth.
Vivian, the author of Well Endowed: The Secrets to Strategic Spending tells Metro: ‘These days, I’d say a high salary varies based on where you live and frankly, isn’t necessarily a number, but rather how many of your “buckets” you can fill.
‘Does your income allow you to cover all of your basic necessities? Does your income provide you with a discretionary spending budget that helps you feel like you are thriving or just surviving? Does your income allow you to protect your future by saving for emergencies, paying down your debts, and maxing out all of your retirement investments?’
If you can do all of this, then you are successfully making money and living a life you should be proud of.
This article was originally published in March 2026, and has since been updated.
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