Office for National Statistics numbers allow you to see how you measure up (Picture: Getty Images)
Money doesn’t buy happiness. As much as we want to believe in the sentiment, it sure does feel like money would solve a lot of our problems.
And if it can’t buy happiness, we may as well be grumpy on a beach in Fiji, beer in hand, rather than clocking in at a 9-to-5.
However, another proverb that is undoubtedly true is the wise words of US President Theodore Roosevelt: comparison is the thief of joy. If we’re constantly looking over the fence in jealousy at our neighbour’s seemingly perfect lives, we might just forget to enjoy our own.
Except there’s a problem with that, too. British stubbornness. We’re desperate to know how we compare to those around us, and no more so than when it comes to our annual earnings.
Discussing wages among colleagues is often taboo (Picture: Getty Images/iStockphoto)
Thankfully, the business buffs at Forbes have done the snooping for us and crunched the Office for National Statistics numbers to work out the UK median wage for different age brackets. It allows you to see if you’re sitting pretty – or being short changed – when compared to your peers.
A quick note here to explain that the numbers given by Forbes are median rather than mean, as a true average can be heavily inflated by the serious earners (thanks a lot investment bankers).
The median paints a more realistic picture of what’s going on around you. Unless, of course, you’re in that top 1%, in which case you really don’t need to be concerning yourself with all of this, do you?
Age 18-21 – Median annual salary: £22,932
It’s (hopefully) only up from here (Picture: Getty Images)
Unsurprisingly, 18 to 21-year-olds have the lowest median earnings across the UK due to lack of experience on the job, bringing in an average of £441 per week.
It’s hard to demand top tier wages at this stage unless you’re lucky to be good enough at kicking a ball around that Chelsea will add you to its little army.
The good news is that earnings typically increase with age and time under employment.
Age 22-29 – Median annual salary: £30,316
Your parents were already on their third home by now (Picture: Getty Images)
This is where the numbers get closer to the overall UK average annual salary of around £34,000 a year.
By this stage we’ve got a bit of experience under our belts and we’re still young enough for people to think we’re vibrant, enthusiastic and full of ideas to shake things up.
The reality is we’re more concerned with having to accept the fact we’ll likely never own a house of our own because we’re spending all of our money on those dang avocados. It works out at £583 a week.
Age 30-39 – Median annual salary: £37,544
This is where the disparity in pay between men and women significantly widens (Picture: Getty Images)
As we mentioned earlier, salary typically increases with age, so it’s another jump now …read more
Source:: Metro
