Knowing the average salary for your age helps you benchmark your earnings and plan your career. Here is how earnings change across a career, based on ONS ASHE 2026 (April 2026, provisional) data.
Read more: See our Salary By Profession guide for a complete overview of this topic.
UK Median Salary by Age Group (ONS ASHE, April 2026)
Median gross annual earnings for full-time employees by age band, April 2026 (provisional):
| Age band | Median full-time annual pay | Compared with UK median |
|---|---|---|
| 18 to 21 | £24,578 | −39.9% |
| 22 to 29 | £33,678 | −17.7% |
| 30 to 39 | £42,593 | +4.1% |
| 40 to 49 | £46,280 | +13.1% |
| 50 to 59 | £43,860 | +7.2% |
| 60 and over | £38,060 | −7.0% |
| All ages (UK median) | £40,911 | n/a |
Source: ONS ASHE 2026 provisional, Table 6.7a (annual pay, gross, full-time). Figures are for full-time employees who had been in their job for at least a year. ONS suppresses the 16 to 17 band (no figure is published). The last column is the percentage difference from the overall UK full-time median.
Medians for all employees, including part-time, are lower than full-time medians (ASHE 2026 provisional, Table 1.7a).
The Salary Lifecycle
Earnings tend to rise through the early part of a career, level off in mid-career and then flatten or fall for some workers in the late-career years, as some move to fewer hours. The table above shows the medians for each band. Job changes, promotion and sector all affect how fast an individual’s pay moves.
Gender Pay Gap by Age
The gender pay gap widens with age. The table below is illustrative of the general pattern seen in ONS data; confirm current-year exact splits before citing precise percentages.
| Age group | Pattern |
|---|---|
| 22–29 | Gap is smallest for young workers |
| 30–39 | Gap widens as career breaks begin to bite |
| 40–49 | Gap is typically widest in this bracket |
| 50–59 | Gap remains wide, narrows slightly |
| 60+ | Gap narrows relative to peak-career bands |
The gap is generally attributed to career breaks for childcare disproportionately affecting women’s progression, and to occupational segregation. See the gender pay gap for ONS’s current figures.
Salary by Sector and Age
Some sectors pay much more at certain career stages (illustrative, by sector and career stage — confirm current figures for your specific sector):
| Sector | Entry-career | Mid-career | Senior |
|---|---|---|---|
| Finance & insurance | Lower | Higher | Highest |
| Tech & IT | Lower | Higher | Highest |
| Law | Lower | Higher | Highest |
| Healthcare (NHS) | Moderate | Moderate-higher | Higher |
| Education | Moderate | Moderate | Moderate-higher |
| Construction | Moderate | Moderate | Moderate |
| Retail & hospitality | Lower | Lower-moderate | Moderate |
| Public administration | Moderate | Moderate | Moderate-higher |
Finance, law, and tech have the steepest earnings curves — but also the widest ranges within each age group. See Average Salary by Sector UK for sourced current figures.
Regional Salary by Age
Median full-time salary tends to be highest in London at every age, with the gap driven substantially by the concentration of finance, law, and tech roles. See our Average Salary UK and London vs North comparison guides for current sourced regional figures — after housing costs, much of the headline London premium disappears.
How to Know If Your Salary Is On Track
A simple starting point is to compare your full-time salary with the median for your age band in the table above, then adjust for your region and sector. The ONS overall full-time median was £40,911 in April 2026 (provisional). Average salary by region and city gives the median where you work, and the income percentile calculator shows where your income ranks among all taxpayers.