# Housing affordability: house prices against local earnings

How many years of pay a home costs, in every local authority in England and Wales, from the official ONS figures. The typical home in England now costs 7.63 times a full time worker's typical annual pay, down from 7.84 the year before but still far above the 3.54 times recorded in 1997. This page shows how that ratio has moved since 1997, and where a home is hardest and easiest to afford on local earnings.

Source page: https://britishresilienceindex.com/deep-dive/housing-affordability
Machine readable data: https://britishresilienceindex.com/data/deep-dive/housing-affordability.json

## How to read this

The ratio compares the median house price in an area with the median annual earnings of people who work there (workplace based earnings), the measure the ONS treats as its headline. A ratio of 8 means the typical home costs eight times the typical local worker's annual pay. Figures cover England and Wales; house price years run to September, earnings years are calendar years, matching the ONS methodology.

## A typical home costs 7.63 times typical pay in England

In 2025, the median home in England cost 300,000 pounds, 7.63 times the 39,298 pounds median annual pay of someone working there. That is down from 7.84 times in 2024, but still well above the 3.54 times recorded when the series began in 1997. Wales is more affordable on this measure, at 5.95 times pay in 2025, down from 6.13.

- **Ratio england**: 7.63
- **Ratio england prev**: 7.84
- **Ratio wales**: 5.95
- **Price england**: 300,000
- **Earnings england**: 39,298

## From 3.54 times pay in 1997 to 7.63 times in 2025

The ratio of house prices to earnings in England has more than doubled since 1997. It climbed steeply in the early 2000s, dipped after the 2008 financial crisis, then climbed again through the 2010s to a peak above 9 times pay in 2021 during the pandemic housing boom. It has eased for four years running as house prices have flattened while pay has kept rising, though it remains far above pre-2000 levels.

**Series**

| year | ratio |
|---|---|
| 1,997 | 3.54 |
| 1,998 | 3.67 |
| 1,999 | 3.96 |
| 2,000 | 4.19 |
| 2,001 | 4.5 |
| 2,002 | 5.12 |
| 2,003 | 5.93 |
| 2,004 | 6.6 |
| 2,005 | 6.79 |
| 2,006 | 6.95 |
| 2,007 | 7.15 |
| 2,008 | 6.97 |
| 2,009 | 6.4 |
| 2,010 | 6.85 |
| 2,011 | 6.8 |
| 2,012 | 6.77 |
| 2,013 | 6.76 |
| 2,014 | 7.09 |
| 2,015 | 7.54 |
| 2,016 | 7.72 |
| 2,017 | 7.91 |
| 2,018 | 8.04 |
| 2,019 | 7.88 |
| 2,020 | 7.86 |
| 2,021 | 9.06 |
| 2,022 | 8.56 |
| 2,023 | 8.45 |
| 2,024 | 7.84 |
| 2,025 | 7.63 |

- **Start year**: 1,997
- **Start ratio**: 3.54
- **End year**: 2,025
- **End ratio**: 7.63
**Markers**

| year | ratio |
|---|---|
| 1,997 | 3.54 |
| 2,000 | 4.19 |
| 2,007 | 7.15 |
| 2,010 | 6.85 |
| 2,016 | 7.72 |
| 2,025 | 7.63 |

## The same typical pay, a very different mortgage

The least affordable area is Kensington and Chelsea, where a typical home costs 25.22 times typical local pay, buying barely a fraction of a home in most of England for a year's earnings. The most affordable is Hyndburn, at 4.08 times pay. London boroughs and the commuter belt around it dominate the least affordable end; former industrial towns in the North and Wales dominate the most affordable end.

**Least affordable**

| name | ratio |
|---|---|
| Kensington and Chelsea | 25.22 |
| Richmond upon Thames | 17.55 |
| Westminster | 16.04 |
| Elmbridge | 15.74 |
| St Albans | 15.01 |
| Barnet | 14.86 |
| Wandsworth | 14.7 |
| Brent | 14.49 |

**Most affordable**

| name | ratio |
|---|---|
| Hyndburn | 4.08 |
| Kingston upon Hull, City of | 4.12 |
| Cumberland | 4.15 |
| Blackpool | 4.18 |
| Burnley | 4.18 |
| County Durham | 4.34 |
| Blaenau Gwent | 4.34 |
| Neath Port Talbot | 4.41 |

## Years of pay, not months

A ratio of 25.22 in Kensington and Chelsea means a typical local worker would need to save every penny of 25 years' pay, with no mortgage and no living costs, to buy the typical home outright. In Hyndburn, the same test takes about 4 years. Most lenders will not offer a mortgage much beyond four and a half times income, which is why the highest ratio areas rely heavily on existing housing wealth, dual high incomes or help from family to buy at all.

## For housing affordability

**Typical mortgage lending tops out at around four and a half times income, yet the England ratio is 7.63. How are people actually buying homes in the least affordable areas?**

The ONS series measures the gap between prices and pay, not how buyers bridge it, so this page cannot show who is buying or with what money. The gap itself is large: in 2025 the median home in England cost 300,000 pounds against median annual pay of 39,298 pounds, a ratio of 7.63, and in Kensington and Chelsea the ratio reaches 25.22. The page's own reading is that where the ratio sits far beyond what a lender will advance, buying must rely heavily on existing housing wealth, dual high incomes or help from family, but that is an inference from the ratio rather than something the dataset records.

**The ratio has eased for four years since its 2021 peak. Is that a genuine improvement in affordability, or prices catching up with a period when pay grew faster than usual?**

The series shows the easing clearly. The England ratio peaked at 9.06 times pay in 2021 and has fallen every year since, to 8.56 in 2022, 8.45 in 2023, 7.84 in 2024 and 7.63 in 2025. The ratio alone cannot separate the two explanations, because it moves whenever either prices or pay move and the figures are in cash terms with no adjustment for inflation. What the page does say is that the ratio has eased as house prices have flattened while pay has kept rising, and that after four years of falls it is still more than double the 3.54 recorded in 1997.

**Kensington and Chelsea costs 25.22 times local pay while Hyndburn costs 4.08 times. Does a single national housing policy make sense across that range?**

The data cannot judge policy, but it does show how wide the range is. Across the 317 local authorities with a 2025 figure, the ratio runs from 25.22 in Kensington and Chelsea to 4.08 in Hyndburn, and the two ends have distinct geographies: London boroughs and the commuter belt around them fill the least affordable end, while former industrial towns in the North and Wales fill the most affordable end. Wales as a whole sits at 5.95 times pay against 7.63 for England. On the page's own test, a typical worker in Kensington and Chelsea would need about 25 years' pay to buy the typical home outright, and a worker in Hyndburn about 4 years.

**This measure uses workplace based earnings, the pay of people who work in an area, not necessarily the people who live and buy there. Does that flatter or understate affordability in commuter areas and areas with heavy tourism?**

It can cut either way, and this page cannot say which for any particular area, because it uses only the workplace based series. Workplace based earnings are the pay of people who work in an area. In principle, where residents earn more than the people who work locally, as in many commuter areas and places with a lot of second homes, the ratio makes homes look less affordable to residents than they are; where local jobs pay more than residents earn, it does the opposite. The ONS also publishes a residence based version of the ratio, which the caveats note can differ in areas with a lot of commuting or second homes; comparing the two series would be the way to answer this, and it is not done on this page.


## Sources

- Housing affordability in England and Wales: 2025 (ONS bulletin) (https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/housing/bulletins/housingaffordabilityinenglandandwales/2025) · Open Government Licence v3.0
- Ratio of house price to workplace based earnings, lower quartile and median (ONS dataset) (https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/housing/datasets/ratioofhousepricetoworkplacebasedearningslowerquartileandmedian) · Open Government Licence v3.0

## Caveats and data notes

- The ratio compares median house prices with median workplace based earnings, the earnings of people who work in an area rather than those who live there. The ONS also publishes a residence based version, which can differ in areas with a lot of commuting or second homes.
- House price years run to September of the stated year; earnings years are calendar years, matching the ONS methodology. Figures are cash terms, not adjusted for inflation.
- Coverage is England and Wales only; Scotland and Northern Ireland publish affordability statistics separately and are not included here.
- The Isles of Scilly is suppressed in the source data for the latest year and is excluded from the local authority league table.
- This page covers the ratio between prices and pay. Price levels themselves, including how they vary by area and property type, are covered in the house prices deep-dive.

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British Resilience Index, a non-partisan UK civic data project. Every figure is
reconciled to its primary official publisher before it is shown. Free to cite with
attribution: https://britishresilienceindex.com