Is £30,000 a Good Salary in the UK? (2026)

The Verdict for a First Proper Job

Your First £30k Payslip Decoded

The first shock of full-time work is the gap between the number in your contract and the number that lands in your bank account. £30,000 a year is £2,500 a month gross. What arrives is quite a bit less, and every deduction has a reason. Here is a typical first payslip, line by line, for the 2026/27 tax year in England, Wales or Northern Ireland.

Payslip line	Monthly amount	What it is
Gross pay	£2,500.00	Your £30,000 salary divided by 12
Income tax	−£290.50	20% basic rate on pay above your £12,570 personal allowance (£1,047.50/month tax free)
National Insurance	−£116.20	8% on the same slice of pay above £12,570
Pension (auto-enrolment)	−£125.00	A typical 5% employee contribution; your employer adds more on top
Student loan (Plan 5)	−£37.50	9% of pay above the £25,000 threshold, if this plan applies to you
Take-home	≈ £1,931	With pension and a Plan 5 loan. No loan, no pension: £2,093

Two things worth knowing about that payslip. First, the pension line usually costs you less than it looks: depending on how your scheme takes contributions, tax relief means £125 of pension typically reduces your take-home by £100 or so. Second, if you are a Scottish taxpayer the income tax line is calculated differently — see is £30k a good salary in Scotland. For your own exact numbers, with your plan type, pension percentage and tax code, use the take-home pay calculator or the income tax calculator.

A Realistic First-Jobber Budget

Here is how roughly £1,931 a month can work in a large UK city outside London — think Manchester, Leeds or Birmingham — assuming you do what most first-jobbers do and share a flat or house rather than rent alone.

Category	Monthly	Notes
Room in a shared flat	£650	A decent room in a good area; cheaper cities or further out can be £500 or less
Bills share	£130	Council tax, energy and broadband split between housemates
Groceries	£220	Cooking most meals; supermarket own-brand where it makes sense
Transport	£90	Bus or tram pass; a car would roughly double this
Phone and subscriptions	£55	SIM-only plus a couple of streaming services
Savings	£200	Builds a three-month emergency fund in around two years
Everything else	£586	Eating out, gym, clothes, travel home, the unplanned stuff

That is a comfortable, sociable budget with genuine saving built in — the position most people never get back to once dependants and mortgages arrive, which is exactly why saving something now matters. London is the exception: with rooms in shared flats commonly £900 or more a month, the same salary leaves far less slack, and many London first-jobbers save little in year one. To rework these numbers around your own city and habits, use the budget planner.

The £30k Trajectory: Where It Goes in 3–5 Years

A first salary matters less than the slope that follows it. £30,000 is a launch point, and how fast it grows depends heavily on sector. Some general patterns, with the usual caveat that individual outcomes vary widely:

• Tech and software: typically the steepest curve. Junior developers, analysts and product roles starting near £30k commonly reach £40,000–£50,000 within two to three years once they pass the junior threshold.
• Finance, law and professional services: structured ladders where pay is tied to qualifications. Completing ACA, ACCA or a training contract usually triggers a step change rather than a gradual climb.
• Public sector (NHS, civil service, teaching): slower but predictable. Pay scales move in published increments, so you can see years ahead — the trade-off for smaller jumps is certainty and pension quality.
• Marketing, media and the creative industries: progression tends to come from moving employers rather than waiting for internal rises, and titles inflate faster than salaries, so benchmark on pay, not job title.

Across almost every sector, the single most reliable accelerator is changing employer at the right moment, and negotiating properly when you do. Our guide on how to negotiate a pay rise covers both. And if you want to see what the far end of the curve looks like, compare this page with is £80k a good salary.

Student Loans at £30k: Plan 2 vs Plan 5

If you went to university in England, your loan plan makes a real difference to your payslip at £30,000 — and which plan you are on depends simply on when you started your course.

	Plan 2	Plan 5
Who is on it	Started an undergraduate course in England or Wales between 2012 and 2023	Started a course in England from September 2023 (first repayments from April 2026)
Repayment threshold	£29,385	£25,000
Rate above threshold	9%	9%
Repayment on £30,000	≈ £55/year (about £5/month)	£450/year (£37.50/month)

The lower Plan 5 threshold means recent graduates repay around eight times as much per month at this salary as someone a few years older on Plan 2, whose repayments at £30,000 are close to nil now that the Plan 2 threshold sits just below this salary — worth knowing when you compare payslips with colleagues. Repayments are taken automatically through payroll, only on income above the threshold, and stop if your pay drops below it. Thresholds per gov.uk: repaying your student loan; for how the plans work in full, including interest and write-off dates, see our guide to student loan repayment explained.

Early-Career FAQs

This guide is general information, not financial advice. Figures are for the 2026/27 tax year and rounded for clarity; your own deductions depend on your tax code, pension scheme and loan plan. For a full breakdown of the £30,000 tax position, see £30,000 after tax.