A measurement of the splitting scales occuring in the k t jet-clustering algorithm is presented for final states containing a Z boson. The measurement is done using 20.2 fb−1 of proton-proton collision data collected at a centre-of-mass energy of $$ \sqrt{s}=8 $$ TeV by the ATLAS experiment at the LHC in 2012. The measurement is based on chargedparticle track information, which is measured with excellent precision in the p T region relevant for the transition between the perturbative and the non-perturbative regimes. The data distributions are corrected for detector effects, and are found to deviate from state-of-the-art predictions in various regions of the observables.