Sorry, but £80k a year in London ^really is^ a large salary

[nickymanchester]

So I was just reading the "Unpopular Opinions" threads and I noticed more than one poster saying that £80k a year really isn't a lot of money in London or the SE.

What with being locked down again and not having much to do I thought I'd have a look at the actual figures as I had no idea which side of that argument is correct.

For full time workers who work in London, the median (average) pay is £39,500 (men £42,700, women £35,800).

If a person is earning £80k a year in London then they are on the 87th percentile. Although, if you're a woman that places you in the top 95%

(87th percentile means that you earn more than 87% of all people - ie you're in the top 13%).

Of course, areas of London are very different so I split London down as shown below.

The practical upshot is that, well, if you work in the City of London then I guess you could argue that £80k isn't necessarily a large salary.

You might even be able to get away with this if you work in Tower Hamlets. But elsewhere - not really.

.............................................75th.......Gender

Area......................Median...Prcnt......Pay Gap
City of London.....57,361....89,492....27.9%
Tower Hamlets.... 49,728....72,254....20.6%
Westminster.........43,597....64,038....15.7%
Southwark............41,948....59,816....11.4%
Camden................39,837....53,950....20.9%
Hammersmith......39,676....54,132....14.9%
Islington................39,312....59,587....8.1%
Lambeth...............37,866....55,458....15.3%
Hackney................36,748....46,540....9.4%
Waltham Forest....35,651....45,552....23.5%
Hillingdon.............35,183....52,390....5.5%
Lewisham.............34,913....46,608....-2.5%
Brent.....................34,866....48,064....8.5%
Hounslow.............34,809....50,528....5.2%
Richmond.............34,726....47,070....25.4%
Kensington...........34,445....47,242....4.4%
Croydon................34,086....45,146....18.8%
Havering...............33,821....46,249....-15.0%
Greenwich............33,181....45,427....6.0%
Kingston...............33,030....49,150....18.7%
Haringey...............32,812....44,840....-11.8%
Newham...............32,292....49,618....-1.8%
Sutton...................32,167....43,898....-2.4%
Wandsworth.........31,938....45,786....7.0%
Bromley................31,777....44,824....10.7%
Ealing....................31,418....45,001....-6.0%
Merton..................30,607....48,381....-11.0%
Barking.................30,482....39,988....13.5%
Redbridge.............30,306....45,157....-5.7%
Barnet...................30,092....47,362....9.3%
Enfield...................29,895....40,586....11.8%
Bexley....................28,174....39,614....11.3%
Harrow...................26,998....43,077....17.3%

And for comparison with people outside of London:-

London.................39,556....57,975
South East............31,647...44,704
Scotland...............30,820....41,855
East.......................29,895....41,449
North West...........29,099....40,820
West Midlands.....28,730....40,186
East Midlands......28,704....40,004
South West...........28,605....39,645
Yorkshire...............28,023....38,865
Wales....................27,966....38,392
Northern Ireland...27,487....37,903
North East............27,113....37,872

All figures are ONS latest 2020 figures extracted from NOMIS. Gender pay gap is for full time employees only.

I disagree. It's enough to be comfortable if you're single but it isn't a lot. If you have two 80k salaries, it's better obvz but you still struggle to afford private education on it.

Not in relation to cost of living. With £80k you'll be able to get a mortgage on a pokey 1 bed flat (providing you have access to the massive deposit). £20k can get you a mortgage on a one bed flat up north with a much more easily affordable deposit. In the grand scheme of things £20k goes further up north than £80k in London.

£80k is not a huge salary in London. Let's break this down Apart from anything else you are asing your opinion on what would be wanted rather than what actually is the current scale of wages in London - where, as detailed above, £80K would be a very good salary in London!

If you think 80k is not a lot in London, what are you doing to help those surviving on half that? Has this affected your voting for example? Your charity giving? Nothing whatsoever! I live in a part NotLondon where wages are far lower and costs not quite in line with that. My charity is done here, my voting done on local issues (when I can find someone it's possible to actually vote for these days).

Until there's a thread like this, a headline about legislation etc that affects me but won't benefit me as I don't live in London, I don't even think about London or Londoners.

As for those who say what about those who earn less - well yes, in London many many people are really struggling. Again, I compare it to my brother who earns 20k and owns a house up north. Living in London on 18k, I rented a 2 by 3 metre room with bars on the windows and some days chose between walking 2.5 hours to walk versus a third meal.

Just because something is above average doesn't make it great / a lot:

@Viviennemary I agree but phone is a luxury. You can't get something good for £10 a month. Transportation is another killer but with the current pandemic I excluded. But it used to cost £200+ a month.

On the other post, I don't think £200 on council tax is a lot. But I wanted to be clear that out of the £600 you are only left with £400 a month to feed your family and pay your essential bills.

OP - i love that your bored brain hunts out data. I found the data interesting because yes there are clearly a lot of cleaners, health care assistants, hospitality workers, refuse collectors, teachers living and working in London.

i agree it doesnt go far as the cost of living is higher but presumably all the lower salaries dont go as far either.

Possibly people the range of salaries in london is bigger so the lowest is minimum wage and the highest is 500,000 plus bonuses of the same so its not large on the scale of possible salaries? Maybe other towns the range is minimum wage to 250k

What annoys me are the people saying that it isn't a really large salary. Irritating isn't it? Even when you have given details.

It is NOT a large salary in London, you have evidenced that. That it doesn't go very far only makes it worse!

It is however a large salary, an enormous sum of money to earn each year. And I earn good money, or so I thought!

@roarfeckingroarr

I disagree. It's enough to be comfortable if you're single but it isn't a lot. If you have two 80k salaries, it's better obvz but you still struggle to afford private education on it.

I'm really not sure why private education is even factored into the discussion. It's not just a luxury, its a very privileged luxury. Most people even on higher than average wages dont factor in private schools, rather buy/rent in a nicer area and invest in tutors for exams/extra curricular. Even that's not essential in the slightest.

My husband and I earn this combined in the SE. Doesn’t go far after paying mortgage for decent (not great) semi detached house, nursery fees and bills. Not a chance of private schools on this sort of money. And frankly not a lot left for things like a holiday either.

All the comments about it being huge or not solidifies my point about it being relative.

£80k a year is not easy to come by in general. However, how far that money goes depends on some many things: location, dependants, etc.

@Pukkatea

Of course it's above average, but the problem is that above average doesn't get you very far.

My DP and I earn 100k between us. We are looking to move and can't afford more than a 2 bed flat with no garden. Our local nursery costs 15k a year. We can't justify running a car. I think we have an above average lifestyle in that we can afford holidays and to socialise, but I have a worse quality of life than my parents who live up north and retired at 50 from jobs earning 30-35k.

I don't think you are unusual in having a lower quality of life than your parents, regardless of your high income. That is a separate issue.

@nickymanchester I think the PP means it's not a great salary for a middle class person in London. There are a LOT of people in London working in the fig economy or on zero hours contracts, especially as there are such high numbers of foreign workers here who are easy to exploit. Those people bring the average salary down significantly.

If you compare the lifestyle a middle class professional family could have on 80k in Leeds, say, with the lifestyle the same family could have in London then you see that 80k doesn't go far here.

@roarfeckingroarr

Just because something is above average doesn't make it great / a lot:

But it's not just being "above average" - £80k is more than double the average wage (unless you work in the City)

A woman who earns £80k is earning more than 95% of all women who work in London.

And that's just full-time workers. If you add in part-time workers then she would earn more than 99% of all women in London.

Imagine walking down the street (pre-covid of course) and seeing all the women there and knowing that for every hundred women you see you will earn more than 99 of them - sometimes very much more, usually double what they are earning.

And you think that this doesn't mean that you are earning a lot?

It's a large salary. It's not a large household income if you have children due to housing costs. As others have said, £80k would get you a mortgage for a flat for £320k, which in most areas would barely get you a 1 bed flat. If you are single or a couple, fine, but if you have kids, it's tough. Yes, you could move to zone 73 and probably find a 2-3 bed flat, but then you would have a terrible commute and miss out on a lot of what makes London worth living in. So I think people mean it doesn't go far due to housing costs, not that it's impossible. Bear in mind a lot of people living in central London are in their 20s and living in crappy houseshares which older people or people with children aren't willing to do.

Yet another thread like this - I never usually comment on these but for goodness sake !
How much do you think all the millions of people in Hospitality or Retail earn ?! It will certainly be a lot less that £80k. Much nearer 18- 20k I would think.
You all sound deluded if you genuinely do not accept that £80K is a high salary.
The OP demonstrated that it was in top 87% percentile so if you are comparing yourself to Alan Sugar it’s a rubbish salary, compared to 86% of London population it’s very good.

I think the issue is £80k sounds a lot (because it is) but the expected lifestyle and actual lifestyle don’t match up.

£80k a few years ago when house prices were normal would have given you a good middle class lifestyle. Maybe private school if your partner also earnt well.

Now, a family house (3 bedroom house) which isn’t a huge expectation for someone earning £80k costs upwards of £600k in London, so that’s a huge chunk of earnings gone, after saving years for a deposit.

I don’t think anyone on £80k could consider themselves poor by any means, but I can recognise a frustration that after working to get to that point, the ‘middle class lifestyle’ still isn’t fully in reach. Particularly when figures say as a woman, you’re in the top 5% of earners, but you don’t feel like a top 5% lifestyle when you look at people on £30k who bought a house in the 90s now worth millions.

@dchange

£80k is not a huge salary in London. Let's break this down Monthly Salary after tax =£4400(approx) Rent or mortgage= £2,000 (assuming 3 bedroom) Kids nursery =£1,500 ( under 3) After care wrap up = £200 (over 5) assuming the child is primary school age Bills and food = £600 (feeding a family of 4) include electricity, council, gas, food. Council tax on its own is £200!!!

You are left with £100 at the end of the month for emergency.

Now, if you have one parent working and the other staying home then it's a good salary as you easily write off kid nursery and after care Wrap up for the 2 kids. Also you can shave off some money from the rent but I don't know many places with rent for family of three under £1,500 a month.

So it's all relative!

But if you have childcare costs you have more than 80K coming in as the discussion is 80K salary rather than 80K household income, no?

People here do not understand the original post. The stats refer to income per person, not household our couple. They also refer to differences between women and men. It is futile to compare these with 'we both earn 40k, which makes 80k, and we could never afford xyz.'.

It would be more representative to say 'I earn 80k, and my parter Xk and this is how we live'. But we have yet to come across such an example because 80k is HIGH even in London.

I can't see if this has been covered, so apologies if you've already answered, but how are those figures recorded?

Are those based salaries of residents in those boroughs or salaries paid by employers located in those boroughs?

London has a huge working population which does not live within the same borough. If figures are based on salaries paid within those boroughs, I don't think it is necessarily reflective of the actual cost of living in London. House prices are driven by the market, much of which is fuelled by non-residents, meaning although 80k can be 75th percentile, that figure doesn't marry up with 75th percentile of housing/mortgage costs to my knowledge.

I think its bloody insulting to people who survive on average and below salaries to say 'it's not a lot' or 'it doesnt go far'.
And anyone who sees private schooling as an essential needs to take their head out of their privileged arse.

I think it just means that they dont feel particularly rich and they still have to be careful, because living there is much more expensive.

80k is a good salary for most people, thats for sure, but it isnt scrooge mcduck sitting on piles of gold either.

@Chillypenguin I agree. Of course it's possible to survive on less than 80k, even in London(!), but how good would your stand of living be?

For what it's worth, DP and I have a combined income of around 140k in London and we're very comfortable, but we were only able to buy our flat because we had family help with the deposit, and when we have kids, we'll only be able to afford school fees because we're teachers and get a massive discount.

It’s not really that huge. DH earns this in the city. We own a house only just big enough for us and our children outside of London. I work part time around primary school hours but don’t earn much.
DH has the higher 40% tax rate and trains / parking to get in is over 5k per year after tax.
Our kids go to state school- no way could we afford private. We have a cheap 15 year old car. We can only just about afford the occasional foreign holiday, but mostly we go once a year in the uk.
We don’t eat out often but the kids do (used to do) some after school clubs.
We are not rolling in money by any means and DH has to work long stressful hours (even when kids were babies, so I would do the entire day alone until 8pm, he often didn’t see them from one day to the next)
It’s not a huge wage if you have a family really and commute

@RainingBatsAndFrogs

4 bed terrace, very nicely done up but in a not-posh area, not on the tube. No off street parking, let alone a drive, small garden. www.zoopla.co.uk/for-sale/details/56238028?search_identifier=6dd435de081bfea5e30410ec03a3d634

No way we could ever have afforded that on our about-£80k Gross - combined salaries (i.e about £40k each).

And we certainly couldn't have afforded private schooling as well as a mortgage for our very ordinary scruffy house.

LOL what a gem.

Even in London 1.1 million for a 4 bed is a lot. Do you know the street the house is in? I suspect it is actually quite a nice area (the street, not the whole borough). London is not just Richmond, Hampsted and Kensington. Plenty of other boroughs have lovely streets etc.