UK workers do not feel rich unless they earn at least £370,000 a year, finds study

Early in their career – defined as up to five years’ experience - employees need to earn 'as little as' £93,000 annually to feel wealthy

The survey shows that perception of wealth is entirely relative (iStock)

Shadow chancellor John McDonnell’s definition of “the rich” as those earning “£70,000 to £80,000” a year ignited a fierce debate last month over how much you have to earn to feel wealthy. But if a new survey is anything to go by, he may have been far off the mark.

The survey, of 1,555 professionals compiled by salary benchmarking site Emolument has found that British workers do not feel wealthy until they earn at least £370,000 per year, which is more than twice the amount required to be among the 1 per cent richest, according to Emolument.

Early in their career – defined as up to five years’ experience - employees need to earn “as little as” £93,000 annually to feel wealthy.

That figure climbs up to £300,000 for those with between five and 10 years of professional experience, which means junior employees will need to triple their income if they want to still feel wealthy 10 years into their career, the survey found.

Brits demanded the highest paycheques to feel wealthy – tying with US respondents – followed by the French who said they needed £310,000 a year to feel rich. Workers in third-placed Switzerland said that a salary of £208,000 per year would be enough for them to consider themselves rich.

At the bottom end of the table employees in India said that they felt rich when earning £25,000 a year.

In the financial industry, where salaries are widely considered to be among the most generous only one in four bankers said that they considered themselves to be wealthy.

Alice Leguay, COO and co-founder of Emolument.com said it is “not surprising” that only a small proportion of bankers feel wealthy.

“After all, they entered the sector with hopes of huge bonuses, a glamorous and aspirational job and now find themselves in one of the most regulated industries with ever-shrinking payouts and poor social perception of their choice of career, as well as huge standard of living costs which many struggle to maintain,” she said.

"This discrepancy leads many searching for an exit towards less regulated and more exciting opportunities in the venture capital, private equity and hedge fund space, where bankers now perceive opportunities for wealth to be within reach," she added.