Understanding how much of your income you should be saving is an important part of taking control of your finances.
Once you build a good saving habit, you will find it much easier to achieve your broader financial goals like saving up for a house deposit, a wedding, or buying your dream car.
The median amount that a person in the UK has in their savings is only around £9,633, research by Raisin UK in 2025 shows – not much more than is necessary for an emergency fund that covers essential spending for several months.
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Average savings by age in the UK
Average savings are heavily skewed by age. You are more likely to have a better-paying job if you are older, having had more time to climb the career ladder. Plus, people typically accrue more in savings each month as they get older.
The percentage of people that have nothing or very little in savings declines with age, Raisin UK said.
The table below shows how much the average person has in their savings account by age range, and the percentage of people that have £0 or less than £100 in their savings:
Age | Average Savings | Percentage with £0 in savings | Percentage with less than £100 in savings |
|---|---|---|---|
18 to 24 | £2,481 | 10.83% | 27.50% |
25 to 34 | £3,544 | 12.38% | 21.78% |
35 to 44 | £5,996 | 7.91% | 12.99% |
45 to 54 | £11,014 | 6.34% | 11.22% |
55 and over | £20,020 | 2.23% | 7.59% |
Source: Raisin UK, May 2025
Our average pension pot by age guide explores how much people typically have saved for retirement as they get older.
Average salary by gender
Along with age, another factor that influences how much the average person has saved is their gender.
There is a significant savings gap between men and women, with the average man having thousands more in savings (£13,140.61) than the average woman (£6,869.84), according to Raisin.
This gap reflects wider societal issues in the discrepancy between the average earnings of men and women, and how more women will typically take career breaks to take care of children than men, impacting their pay.
This trend does not just exist for regular savings – women on average have much less in their pension pots than men.
How much should I have in my savings?
How much you should have in your savings at a certain age depends on many personal factors.
This means there isn’t a “hard-and-fast rule to determine how much you should save by a certain age,” says Craig Rickman, personal finance expert at investment platform Interactive Investor. Instead, he says it comes down to changing financial priorities as you age.
An example of this is saving for a deposit on your first home. Rickman says: “Imagine you’re 25 years old and want to buy a house in 10 years’ time. Regardless of what other people are doing, the important thing is to build a sufficient deposit over the next decade to fulfil your dream of home ownership.”
But, speaking in more general terms, there are some good rules of thumb that can help you work out how much you need to have in your savings.
Sarah Coles, head of personal finance at investment platform Hargreaves Lansdown, says: “The rule of thumb is that when you’re working age, you should have enough cash in an easy access account to cover three to six month’s worth of essential spending.”
The size of this pot will depend on what you consider ‘essential spending’ and your personal life conditions.
She explains: “If, for example, there are a number of people relying on your income, and you have had health problems in the past or your income is variable, you’ll probably feel more comfortable holding more [in easy access savings].”
“However, if you have a secure job, good health, a wider family to call on when things get tough, and nobody else spending your income, you might be happier with less.”
This being said, Hargreaves Lansdown’s savings and resilience barometer says the average emergency fund should be around £6,174 as average essential outgoings a month are £2,058.
It is important to note that the perfect size of your emergency fund will be entirely dependent on how many monthly outgoings you have, so it is worth doing your own calculations.
How should you budget your salary?
Another popular principle to follow is the “50/30/20” rule, which helps you budget your salary. The rule says around 50% of your income should go to your needs, 30% to your wants, and 20% to your savings.
Following the rule provides a good framework which you can adapt to fit your own personal circumstances. For example, if you live somewhere rent or mortgage-free, you probably will not need to spend 50% of your salary on needs, meaning you can spend more on your wants or put more away in your savings.
A table budgeting the median UK salary using the 50/30/20 rule can be found below.
Budgeting rule | Suggested allocation amount |
|---|---|
Needs (50%) | £15,814 |
Wants (30%) | £9,488 |
Savings (20%) | £6,325 |
Salary (after tax) | £31,629 |
Source: ONS, median gross annual earnings April 2025. Median pre-tax earnings are £39,039.
Applying this rule, we can see that someone on the average UK salary may find it useful to save around £6,325 every year. But remember, this budget may not be a good fit for your own personal circumstances.
You may be in a position where your essential spending has to be more than 50% of your pay. Or, you may need to save more to help you meet a target you set for yourself.
Ultimately, how much someone should have in their savings will be different for each person. You should use your best judgment to work out how much you should be saving each month.
Find out how your wealth compares to peers in our average net worth by age guide.
How can I grow my savings?
Once you decide to start saving, the next step is to work out where you’re going to keep your money to make sure its purchasing power is not eroded by inflation.
When building your emergency fund, you should make sure it is in an easy-access savings account that has no restrictions on either the frequency or size of withdrawals. This ensures that you can access your money the moment you need it.
It may be a good idea to see if you can use an easy-access cash ISA for this, as you do not have to pay any tax on the interest you earn from your savings inside an ISA.
You can put up to £20,000 a year into ISAs and you can split this between different types, such as a cash and stocks and shares ISA. However, from April 2027, under 65s will only be able to use £12,000 of this allowance for cash savings.
Once you have built up your emergency savings, it may be a good idea to start building up long-term savings – perhaps for large purchases like house deposits, your wedding, or for a special purchase.
To make your savings as tax-efficient as possible, consider maximising your annual ISA allowance first. If you want to put more than £20,000 a year away, you will have to use a normal savings account once you’ve used the annual ISA allowance.
To build up your long-term wealth it may also be a good idea to consider whether you should start investing. Over the long-term investments can grow your money more than savings accounts, but this is not guaranteed.
The average rate of return for a cash ISA was under 4% over the past year, while the average stocks and shares ISA returned an average of nearly 12% in the same period, according to Moneyfacts.
Be aware that past performance does not guarantee future returns, and that the value of your investments can go up as well as down.
For more information on saving vs investing, read our guide. Also look at our beginner’s guide to investing.
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