£40,000 or $64,000 pre-tax a year is a comfortable income to live off. Anything less than that and you are really scraping things together barely surviving. Earn more and you can get things done.
Tax is too much though 30% or 40% or 50% (inclusive of student debt, income tax and national insurance) depending on how much you earn. Take off VAT, fuel duty, council tax, capital gains tax etc. and the tax paid looks even greater.
http://www.incometaxcalculator.org.uk/
But I hear the UAE 0% income tax
