What was the median household income in the UK in 2025 and how does it differ by region?
Executive summary
The median UK household disposable income around the 2024/25 reporting period was roughly £32,300 per year, a figure published in recent ONS-based summaries and reproduced in public analyses [1] [2]. Regional data show persistent and substantial gaps: the South East sits at the top of the regional rankings while places such as the West Midlands, Wales and the North East sit near the bottom, and measured values change materially once housing costs are subtracted [3] [4].
1. What the headline median means and the official estimate
The Office for National Statistics’ household income releases – summarised in government pages on average household income and used by secondary analysts – place the median disposable household income for the most recent full reporting period at about £32,300 per year (the ONS “median disposable” figure reproduced in public write-ups) and this is the standard headline used to describe the “typical” household’s after‑tax, after‑benefit income [2] [1].
2. Regional ranking: South East on top, West Midlands and others at the bottom
Regional breakdowns, most directly visualised by the House of Commons Library and adapted in analysts’ charts, show the South East of England ranking highest for median household disposable income while the West Midlands is reported as the weakest-performing English region in the ICAEW adaptation of parliamentary research; that ICAEW chart gives the South East’s median household disposable income during 2023/24 as £2,780 per month (after housing costs), driven by a before-housing-costs median of £3,270 and median housing costs of about £490 per month [3] [4].
3. Before and after housing costs: how rent and mortgage burdens change the picture
Analysts stress that the headline regional ordering shifts little but the scale of differences widens when housing costs are deducted; pensioner-dominated households with low housing costs (many mortgage-free) compress regional gaps, while regions with high rents and mortgage payments see sharper falls in median disposable income after housing costs are applied — a distinction made explicit in the ICAEW chart and the underlying House of Commons research it adapts [3] [4].
4. Earnings vs household income: London’s earnings premium but not a simple story
Wage-focused releases from the House of Commons Library and related ONS wage tables show London having the highest median weekly pay for full-time employees in April 2025, and the North East the lowest, which aligns with London’s typically stronger labour market but does not translate one-to-one into household disposable income because household composition, tax, benefits and housing costs modify outcomes [5] [6]. Secondary summaries that report high regional earnings in London (and lower figures in northern regions) therefore illuminate but do not replace household-level disposable income measures [7].
5. Distributional detail and household type matter
The median masks large within-region disparities: the same House of Commons‑derived chart noted by ICAEW shows that the bottom 10% of households had monthly disposable incomes below about £1,300 and the top 10% above £5,475 in 2023/24, and that household composition (couples with children, single adults, pensioner households) produces very different median incomes even inside the same region [3].
6. Caveats, limits of the public record and competing lenses
ONS datasets underpin the headline but have recently changed survey methods and sample frameworks, and secondary presentations draw on slightly different reference periods (for example many regional figures are shown for 2023/24 while wage series report to April 2025), so precise year-to-year comparability is constrained by those choices; the available sources clearly establish the broad 2024/25 median and the regional hierarchy [2] [8] [3]. Where exact numeric medians for every UK region in calendar-year 2025 were not present in the supplied snippets, reporting here relies on the ONS/House of Commons/ICAEW published summaries and their stated caveats [2] [4] [3].
Conclusion
The UK’s median disposable household income in the recent ONS reporting window is roughly £32,300 a year, and regional data consistently show the South East leading while the West Midlands, Wales and the North East are near the bottom; the gap widens once housing costs are removed and household composition and local housing markets are the decisive modifiers of regional living standards [1] [3] [4].