Any question answered...

Im talking after tax.

If £26k is the average, it means the average person has £500 per week. Which seems absurdly high, dont think I know anyone with that much money. Perhaps I associate with too many poor people. Or perhaps there is a massive split, with 'most' people getting closer to 10k (like minimum wage) and lots of other people getting 50k in management jobs. It also seems like statistics are ignoring part timers.

average UK pre-tax income of full-time employees is £26k. note that this excludes self-employed and part-time, as well as obviously the unemployed (not just people on jsa but also full-time mums etc). £26k annual income (ie before tax) equates to £385 or thereabouts after tax, and less than that if you have a student loan.

so the average figure for just a uk person (not full time employee) will be considerably less than £385 net a week. and yes also the average is skewed because there is a minimum that a full-time employee can earn, which is roughly half of the average, whereas large numbers of people are paid two or three times the average, and a few earn ten times it or more.

also there are massive regional variations - which makes sense because of even greater regional variations in the cost of living, in particular price of housing/rent. there are also massive variations by age - so if you are in your 20s and most of the people you know are too, or if you live in the north-east, then you will probably just know people that are poorer than average.