Accredited official statistics

Personal Incomes Statistics 2021 to 2022: Summary Statistics

Published 29 February 2024

1. Introduction

About this publication

The Survey of Personal Incomes (SPI) is based on information held by HMRC on individuals who could be liable to UK Income Tax. It is carried out annually by HMRC and covers income assessable to tax for each tax year.

Most tables in this statistics release exclude individuals who are not taxpayers. This can occur for a number of reasons, for example if they have no Income Tax liability due to their deductions, reliefs and personal allowances exceeding their total income, or if their income is below the Personal Allowance. Figures cover the United Kingdom and tax year 2021 to 2022 unless stated otherwise.

The SPI is compiled to provide information to the public, Members of Parliament, other Government Departments, companies, and organisations. It is a quantified evidence base from which to cost proposed changes to tax rates, personal allowances and other tax reliefs for Treasury Ministers. It is used to inform policy decisions within HMRC, the Treasury and the Devolved Administrations, as well as for tax modelling and forecasting purposes. In addition, it is used to provide summary information for the National Accounts that are prepared by the Office for National Statistics.

Supporting documents to the SPI annual publication are:

1. accompanying statistical tables in Tables 3.1 to 3.11, 3.16 and 3.17 and the geography National Statistics tables 3.12 to 3.15a by tax year. National Statistics are accredited official statistics

2. supporting documentation on the methodology used to produce these statistics is available on our website for the tax year 2021 to 2022 Personal Incomes Statistics 2021 to 2022: Supporting Documentation

Throughout this summary, individual figures have been rounded independently to three significant figures. Therefore, the sum of component items may not necessarily add to the totals shown.

2. Taxpayer numbers

• there were 33.0 million taxpayers in the tax year 2021 to 2022, of those 18.5 million were male and 14.5 million female (Table 3.2 and Table 3.3)

• this represents an increase of 1.3 million taxpayers since the 2020 to 2021 tax year

• the number of male taxpayers increased by 3.2%, while the number of female taxpayers increased by 5.6% since the 2020 to 2021 tax year

3. Total Income Breakdown

• the total income before tax received by taxpayers in the tax year 2021 to 2022 was £1,300 billion (Table 3.3)

• this is 10.1% higher than the total income reported in the previous tax year

Figure 1: Amount of income in the tax year ending 2022 and percentage change since tax year ending 2021 (Table 3.5 and Table 3.6)

Table 1: Amount of income in the tax year ending 2022 and percentage change since tax year ending 2021 (Table 3.5 and Table 3.6)

Type of income	Amount of income in billions	Percentage change since tax year ending 2021
Self-employment	£107	+10.1%
Employment	£918	+11%
Pension	£170	+4.5%
Property, interest, dividend and other	£103	+12.1%

Source: Survey of Personal Incomes for tax year 2021 to 2022, Table 3.5 and Table 3.6.

Figure 2: Proportion of income by type

• there were increases in all types of income over the tax year 2021 to 2022, with increases of 10.1% for self-employment income, 11% for employment income, 4.5% for pension income and 12.1% for property, interest, dividend and other income (Table 3.5 and Table 3.6)

• property, interest, dividend and other income accounts for the smallest proportion of total income at 7.9% of the total income

• employment income accounts for the largest proportion of total income at 70.7%

• pension income is 13.1% of total income

• self-employment income is 8.2% of total income

4. Income Tax liabilities breakdown by tax rate

• Income Tax liabilities for tax year 2021 to 2022 were £226 billion (Table 3.4)

• total Income Tax liabilities increased by around £30.2 billion (15.4%) compared to the previous tax year

Figure 3: The breakdown of Income Tax by the number of taxpayers and estimated tax liability for each marginal rate of tax

Table 2: The breakdown of Income Tax by the number of taxpayers and estimated tax liability for each marginal rate of tax

Tax rate	Number in millions	Percentage of taxpayers	Percentage of total tax
Additional rate	0.5 million	1.6%	35.8%
Higher rate	4.4 million	13.4%	32.6%
Basic rate	27.4 million	83.2%	31.3%
Savers rate	0.6 million	1.8%	0.4%

Source: Survey of Personal Incomes for tax year 2021 to 2022, Table 3.4.

• there were 0.5 million additional rate taxpayers who accounted for 1.6% of taxpayers and 35.8% of total tax

• there were 4.4 million higher rate taxpayers who accounted for 13.4% of taxpayers and 32.6% of total tax

• there were 27.4 million basic rate taxpayers who accounted for 83.2% of taxpayers and 31.3% of total tax

• there were 0.6 million savers rate taxpayers who accounted for 1.8% of taxpayers and 0.4% of total tax

5. Total Income by Region/Country

• the region with the highest number of taxpayers was again the South East region with around 4.8 million (15%) of the total figure

• the change in the number of taxpayers across the UK, ranged from an increase of 120,000 (2.9%) in London to an increase of 140,000 (5.5%) in West Midlands (Table 3.11)

• the region with the highest amount of total income was London, which saw an increase of around £24 billion since the tax year ending 2021 and reached £251 billion, however its share of total income remains unchanged at 19% (Table 3.11)

Figure 4: Number of taxpayers and type of income by Region/Country

Source: Survey of Personal Incomes for tax year 2021 to 2022, Table 3.11.

6. Contact Information

If you have any queries regarding this publication, please use the contact information below to get in touch.

Statistical contact: M Whent, spi.enquiries@hmrc.gov.uk

Media contact: HMRC Press Office, news.desk@hmrc.gov.uk

Website: Personal Income Statistics

Frequency: Published annually

Coverage: United Kingdom Theme: The Economy

Publication date: February 2024

Next publication date: February/March 2025