What salary makes someone “rich”? The British have revealed the magic number…

• The survey asked Britons how much they would need to earn to feel rich
• The average amount is almost three times the average wage
• The Scots had the highest bar, while those in Yorkshire aimed lower

The survey claims you need to earn almost £100,000 a year to be considered rich, but to be “comfortable” you only need just over the average UK wage.

Earning £96,000 is the magic amount that would make the average person feel rich, according to a study by recruiter Indeed.

But 8.6 per cent had a higher bar, saying they would need to earn £201,000 or more to be classed as wealthy – while 6.7 per cent said they would be comfortable with a salary of less than £20,000.

Combined households need earnings of more than £115,500 a year to be classed as wealthy, according to an average calculated from the responses.

The data also showed that the level of income someone classifies as “wealthy” increases in line with their own earnings.

For example, those in households already earning more than £100,000 believed that a household needed an average of £165,500 to qualify as wealthy.

Meanwhile, of those earning less than £15,000, 22 per cent said they were doing well on a salary of £20,000.

What is the average salary in the UK?

In fact, an individual salary of £100,000 would put someone in the top five per cent of earners in the UK.

The average salary for a full-time worker in 2023 was £34,963, according to the Office for National Statistics, while the minimum wage is £23,795 for a 40-hour working week.

Surprisingly, the measure for wealth was considered highest in Scotland, where £106,520 represented the average salary considered to be well-off, while the figure was £103,420 in London and £100,930 in Northern Ireland.

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By comparison, those in Yorkshire and the Humber said you only needed to earn £86,380 to be classed as wealthy, while those in the South West said earning more than £87,250 would make you rich.

However, to afford a “comfortable” standard of living, respondents said you need just £38,130 a year, with almost 60 per cent of respondents saying you need less than £40,000.

For a combined household, this figure rises to £50,280 a year, which is significantly less than double the average UK income, which would be around £70,000.

More than half of those surveyed said they needed £50,000 or less to live comfortably, with three-quarters of respondents on £80,000 and under.

Despite the cost of living continuing to rise, one in five people have not received a pay rise since 2021, while those who have seen an increase of just three per cent on average.

Jack Kennedy, Chief Economist at Indeed, said: “After more than two years of dealing with the cost of living crisis, it’s no surprise that wages are at the forefront of voters’ minds.

“The British people are clearly calling for the elected government to further ease financial pressures and we would expect this to remain at the forefront of the public mind long after the winning side is decided.

“While many faced a pay freeze, salary tracker Indeed shows that posted wage growth for new hires rose to a four-month high of 6.5 percent year-on-year in May, showing that there are opportunities in certain industries. for workers to receive higher wages.’