In this Sydney suburb you need to earn $6.3m to be in the top 1%: How does your area compare?

The top 1 per cent of income earners in 83 Sydney suburbs take home over $1 million a year on average, while in a cluster of harbourside neighbourhoods, to make the 1 per cent bracket, you need to earn more than $3 million.

Analysis of official personal income data by this masthead casts fresh light on how ultra-high pay packets are distributed across the city.

In Bellevue Hill, about five kilometres east of Sydney’s central business district, the average income for the highest paid 1 per cent of taxpayers was $6.3 million in 2022-23. That was $1.2 million lower than the previous year but it was still the highest average for the 1 per cent in any city suburb.

The adjacent neighbourhood of Rose Bay-Vaucluse-Watsons Bay had the city’s second-highest average earnings for the top 1 per cent at $6.12 million (down from $6.37 million the previous year). Third was Woollahra, where the top 1 per cent took home an average of $5.05 million (up from $4.99 million).

There were eight Sydney neighbourhoods where the top 1 per cent had average earnings between $3 million and $5 million (all of them waterfront suburbs) and 72 where average earnings were between $1 million and $3 million.

While suburbs with the highest average incomes for the top 1 per cent were mostly in the eastern suburbs and on the north shore, several were located in the city’s north-west , including Dural-Kenthurst ($1.66 million) and Glenhaven ($1.58 million).

In two outer western Sydney neighbourhoods – Horsley Park-Kemps Creek and Mulgoa-Luddenham-Orchard Hills – the top 1 per cent took home just over $1 million a year.

Demographer and social researcher Mark McCrindle said the high average earnings for the top 1 per cent in parts of western and north-western Sydney showed how patterns of income and wealth have shifted.

“It tells a story of a changing Sydney,” he said. “Yes, we’ve got very high incomes in those harbourside suburbs which has been the case for 100 years, but we’ve got new locations with high incomes as well. The dynamics of wealth have spread geographically.”

McCrindle said income distribution patterns across Sydney showed not all high-income earners wanted to live on the waterfront.

“Some choose to invest their money in a large property, perhaps in bushland, rather than in the harbour area. Places like Dural, Kenthurst and Glenhaven in Sydney’s north-west have really changed economically.”

However, in some western suburbs, the earnings of the top 1 per cent was well below the citywide average. Lowest was Auburn North, about 20 kilometres west of the CBD, where the average income of the best paid 1 per cent was $200,656.

Suburbs where the top 1 per cent have especially high incomes correlate closely with house prices. Bellevue Hill, which had Sydney’s best paid 1 per cent of earners, also had the city’s highest median house price of $10.4 million, according to Domain’s June quarter House Price Report . In neighbouring Vaucluse, the median house price was $9.5 million and in Rose Bay it was $6.5 million.

The top 1 per cent of earners across the whole of Greater Sydney had an average income of $1,027,863 in 2022-23.