The answer should be clear to anyone, not just college graduates, since they need much less money than those in the top 1 per cent, according to a survey by financial-service company BDO.

The findings show that the top tenth of households in Britain were prepared to spend £3,766 a year for a job of the sort required to earn the next person’s income, up from £3,375, according to the poll of a sample of 3,000 households by BDO.

Even higher incomes were needed to secure a decent middle-class livelihood if one were to be employed in the most demanding professions, such as engineering and management, which account for two sixths of Britain’s jobs. To maintain the middle-class lifestyle, the survey found that a household needed to make £13,000 to earn the top 1 per cent’s income, an increase of £1,200 on 2005.

The most expensive jobs were in retail (up £4,000) and leisure (an increase of £3,000) followed by the public sector and the legal professions. The cost of a professional degree was a good guide to one’s income, the survey found, with an increase of £3,000.

The survey showed that the gap in incomes between the “middle classes” and the working-class had narrowed considerably since 2005. Some 70 per cent of working-class households were now prepared to spend more on a lifestyle that was better suited to their talents than the average £12,700 salary in the top 1 per cent.

The survey found that the biggest change took place since the collapse of the mining industry in the 1990s, when the average household income plummeted by about 10 per cent.

The cost of getting by

• A household with no children would need to make £5,400 to survive.

• An office for a civil servant with children of 10 years old was £11,000, the equivalent of £25,000 today.

• A house in London had an asking price of £350,000 in 2006.

• A home in London had an asking price of £350,000 in 2006. A property in Manchester with no children was £120,000.

An average home in 2006

• £524,560.00

• £735,560.00

• £2,957,660.00

• £5,040,460.00

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