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.

Greater Londoner here (the ones who travel in on 15 mins train journey because living in London isn't worth the cost and saved myself £100,000s by living on the outskirts!!!) YES, that is considered a high salary.

I guess it is all relative though, if they work in a particularly high profile role (think senior government / pharmaceutical company etc) then there is scope for more but I'd imagine the majority of jobs not even hitting £80k as highest end of the pay grade.

I think anyone who says you can't live a decent life on 80k is being disingenuous. BUT, there's no doubt that the quality of life in terms of accommodation etc will be much lower in London on that.

Also, it depends on age and place. So if you have been on 80k for the last 10 years and bought your first flat/house 10 years ago, 80K probably is v comfortable. But if, say, you're in your 30s, recently reached this level and still need to buy somewhere to live, you're going to really really struggle on this salary in London unless you've been able to sock away huge amounts for a deposit. Even 10 years ago, when DH and I moved out of London, the two bed terraced, very average and very small house we lived in (rental) was way out of our price range to buy. To put it in context, I'd seen significant pay rises over the previous 2 years (doubled) after I changed job but we hadn't had time to do any meaningful saving. So we had a very small deposit. We were trying for a baby and knew that DH would stop working when I went back from maternity leave so we had to work on the assumption that all bills could be met from my salary (70k). The house next door to our rental had been sold for over £400k around the time we were looking around. Not only could we not afford that, but we wanted a house that was a bit bigger. We moved further out of London and paid less than 300k for a three bedroom house with a small but nice garden where I could still commute relatively easily.

Today - someone in our position would struggle to even do what we did.

It’s not a huge wage if you have a family really and commute I think, as A N Other has said you are confusing household income with one person's salary.

I am assuming your D is the only earner, in which case yes, the taxation etc will hit you harder.

But as a single person's salary it is large!

Moaning that 80 thousand pounds is not enough is more to do with them being entitled greedy bastards than living in London I suspect, or does living in London turn people into entitled greedy bastards.

Agree with dchange
Our family mortgage is 2K a month then we have childcare.
We are certainly not paying for private schools on that salary

The only thing I'd question about the stats is the City of London confuses me. Only 8k people live in the City of London - so are those salary stats based on where people live or where they work? Presumably the former so the City stat isn't particularly representative of anything.

Someone mentioned up thread that pay for a convenient commute when you live in London. you might live in a london borough and commute to the city - that doesn’t make it a quick or easy commute (or cheap!) It takes me 90 mins door to door to my office (1 bus and 2 tubes) £199.30 for a monthly 1-4 travel card.

To be fair, the figures you give show that two median-income earners would earn 80k combined (and pay less tax than a single earner). If you're the sole earner in your household I can see how 80k wouldn't seem like a lot.

@ColdemortReturns

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.

This is really the crux of the issue. It's what higher earner see as 'essential' in a lifestyle that has most people eye rolling to the heavens. Most people, especially outside the SE would hear 'oh we just about get by, though we can't afford private education and only occasionally get a foreign holiday (no, not Benidorm) and our Audi is quite a few years old...' and just think 'oh poor you '.

That house posted above is actually about 20 minutes walk from mine. It's not a nice area, it has nice areas surrounding but that particular place is quite rough.

I think one thing as well is that high London earners tend to surround themselves with other high London earners. Most of my friends earn way above average, even teachers etc. It does warp perception when you make 50k but are the poorest person in your group.

Littlewhitedove2 Your post makes no sense. You have children in primary school, two incomes (one of which is £80k) and the only significant expense you have is £5k a year. Where on earth does the rest of it go that you can't afford a holiday?

The issue is that in London salary is not a predictor of wealth in the same way it is elsewhere because of the insane ratio of house price: income.

The most privileged people in London are the ones who own their own homes - usually those in their 40s and older who bought when it was more reasonable.

The relevant point is that you have to be an incredibly high earner today to match the lifestyle of the average earner of yesterday.

Agree OP. I earn more than that as a single parent in the SE and a very expensive village. I have a 4-bed house and two teenagers. I have no money worries at all. Saying it's not a decent salary is crazy talk.

@CuriousaboutSamphire

It’s not a huge wage if you have a family really and commute I think, as A N Other has said you are confusing household income with one person's salary.

I am assuming your D is the only earner, in which case yes, the taxation etc will hit you harder.

But as a single person's salary it is large!

Yes I am talking about one person earning 80k so the tax is huge. The other parent in our case mainly has childcare duties for multiple children

If you were privately educated yourself you feel a certain duty fo privately educated your own children. Hence why it's such a consideration. I've been saving for my kids school fees since I was mid 20s. I'm now 32 and DS isn't even three months yet.

The cost of living in London is higher.

If you have a job in the same industry outside London even with the London bonus in your salary, your quality and standard of life is liking to be less than your counterpart outside London.

But you get more opportunities in London and there are other attractions to living in London that aren't available elsewhere too.

It is a lot of money, but it doesn''t go as far as it would elsewhere.

So I think its possible to state that 80k in London isn't a lot and to also think that its a lot of money and a good salary at the same time. Its just different ways of comparing it which are both perfectly valid in their own right.

We need the mean, median and mode and range.

I agree with you - but please - "median" isn't "average".

It's the middle of the pay range.

"Mean" is "average".

@BlueGreenDreams I don't think I'm hugely entitled to wish that as 2 people in their 30s in job roles requiring PhDs, we could afford a house with more than 4 rooms.

Excellent! More bitching about London. Just what we need 👍🏻

@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.

It has 3 train stations nearby. This is normal in South London, you use trains, not the tube. Trains go frequently and are quick to get to central London. So the transport links are actually great, which is likely reflected in the price.

My normal sized 3 bedroom house ( morning fancy ) is 850,000.
So no 80,000 a year doesn’t go far here.
Compared to other places however it is my choice to live here 🤷‍♀️ But if I earned 80k or less I would move.

I earn a similar amount to that OP, it is more than enough. As a lone parent I was able to save a deposit to buy a property, pay my rent, nursery, run a car and go on holidays.

Yes I wasn’t living it large, but I wasn’t at all struggling financially.

Pretending to not be wealthy on £80k is insulting and crass.

It's not enough if you want to buy a home in Zone 1.
Or probably zone 2 as well.

Zone 1- cheap 1-bed flats around £500K.

You'd need a combined income of almost £200K.

@roarfeckingroarr

If you were privately educated yourself you feel a certain duty fo privately educated your own children. Hence why it's such a consideration. I've been saving for my kids school fees since I was mid 20s. I'm now 32 and DS isn't even three months yet.

Still not an essential though. Not even close. It's a choice, much like people who say they simply 'need' to have a fancy holiday every year are making a choice for extra expenses on top of their essential outgoings.

Thats not to say most people will go out of their way to have these things, at the cost of others. That's not a bad or wrong thing, it just doesn't make you hard up in comparison to others.