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.

It depends on what stage of life you are in. £80k is quite a lot if you have a small mortgage or your mortgage is paid off. If you are at the beginning or the middle of your mortgage, it doesn't go far. Housing is very expensive.

I live on the edge of London and occasionally look at Rightmove because I might move house. Even on the outskirts you have to pay £600k for a decent three bed and that's if you're lucky. A one bed flat can be £355k.

Many people are stuck in small properties because of the cost.

If you are prepared to move much further out, housing is cheaper but then there is commuting time and costs (I have known people who are prepared to do a two hour journey each way every day and there used to be an 'early bird' fare for those who can get up at the crack of dawn). If you got a job locally you'd earn far less so it would make no difference.

£80k pa would be untold riches for someone like me who is retired but not so great for working people with children.

Why are we talking about London salaries?

Totally depends if you bought somewhere to live in London recently, 5 years ago, 15 years ago.

We bought our house in London (3 bed) 15 years ago and even back then it was £400k and felt like a stretch. The same house today is worth £1.2m and totally out of reach.

I've now relocated to the coast - my mortgage is cheaper than it would be in London but prior to Covid I was spending £600+ a month on travel.

All your figures are pretty irrelevant really - it's got nothing to do with a borough by borough breakdown but on the cost of accommodation and travel. I don't think anyone would ever make the case that £80k is a small salary, but if you're spending £2k a month on mortgage/bills and have e.g. nursery to pay for, it's not a lot either. There's no way anyone can pay for school fees out of that salary unless they are pretty much mortgage free, I'd say, or have savings.

Why do so many people in london send there kids to private school?

It's a good salary, but it doesn't bring the lifestyle with it.

My friend is paying £1400pm for a tiny flat over a shop in London. His open plan living room and kitchen only have room for the smallest of sofas and a bookshelf, and one of those tiny tables that even two people would barely be able to eat at. The bedroom houses the bed and a wardrobe but there's no room for anything else.

I don't know how people live on salaries of £30,000 there. I can only assume that some housing benefit is involved if you're not single. And cramped house-sharing if you are.

But anyone who's worked hard to get a professional job that pays £80,000 is going to want to have somewhere big enough for a couple and maybe have kids. And that salary won't even get them what half the salary would elsewhere.

(I've never earned more than half that salary, so there's no defensiveness in my post - I just look at my friend who has this intensely high-pressure job and barely has any downtime, and I think his salary is not worth it when he can't have a decent home)

@namechangeforfriday

YANBU. Of course it’s a good salary. I live in London and live alone on half that salary. Also, people saying ‘you can’t afford school fees’, shut up. Private school is not a necessity and has absolutely no bearing on whether something is a large salary.

Totally.

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.

Doesn't the existence of those people prove rather than disprove the idea that 80k is a lot? They are living in London, on salaries well under 80k, all needing to afford rent, bills, food, travel. Therefore proving that you can live in London on a lot less, not comfortably obviously. But showing that 80k is well above the amount needed to live in London.

@tellytubby20

t basically depends on whether it's 80k each or combined. Each is fine, especially if you are young, no kids and dont care much about your pension. But if thats your toal family income then no it's not that much. Many people pay 2k in mortgage on very small houses etc. - on 80k you will struggle to buy a place in London - which simply is not the case elsewhere

The other thing to consider is the funny demographic of London e.g. many on low income may not live in London or might be young for example. It's a cliche by now that once people hit their 30s plus kids they leave....most of my friends did. Many then commute in - so their salary will still be counted as in London but they will be coming from further away.

This thread isn't about £80,000 household income. It is about an £80,000 individual income.

It's a very good salary, even for London, I agree OP. Doubtless everyone earning £80,000 in London will personally know people earning double, triple or even more than that. But if they still can't recognise that it is a good salary full stop then they are a knob.

Just also to add the statistics will of course benchmark the majority on a so called minimum London living wage and so upon reflection you probably need to double this hypothetical already high £80k to begin to be truly financially flexible in central London to enjoy most “regular luxuries” in life and reside where you feel appropriate with possibly decent house keeping support etc if required too. I believe this is basic MP level? Not that this is a reflection of service expectations or value for money for a talking shop that is at times self serving possibly!?

I think the London wage stats are skewed by the huge number of people living sharing a room, in sheds, in HMOs packed in like lemmings earning an absolute pittance doing cleaning, car washing, labouring etc. I have seen through my job just how many people are living in appalling conditions earning a pittance. Surviving in London this way is doen through slum landlords and poor living conditions such as multiple families sharing one room, allowing people to live there on low wages but not in any kind of condition that would be enviable. These people have no choice. Even adult kids or large multigenerational families cram into normal but overcrowded homes, flats etc. Even many well-paid young professionals I know rent flats with barely any living space because the living/dining room is converted into another bedroom to make the rent more affordable. There is a lot of wealth in London but there is also a lot of poverty, and people always forget that.

£80k is a decent salary wherever you are. I speak as someone in London, living in Zone 2 and paying expensive childcare fees.

@Christmasfairy2020

Why do so many people in london send there kids to private school?

Plenty don't I can assure you! I would say the majority send their children to state schools.

So as someone who earns a bit less than the amount stated, I know I earn a good amount but it doesn’t earn me the comfortable middle class or well off working class family lifestyle that my parent’s generation had, or that it is possible to have outside London. Rent and childcare are the real killers. But we all make choices.

80k for one person's salary is different to 80k for a household.

I live in London, our combined income is just over 80k. I feel like we have more than enough to live on. Rent is 1800 for a 2 bedroom flat, childcare is 1400, then once bills are paid we still have enough money for food, meals out, holidays, new clothes, and are able to save a little bit each month towards a house deposit, whilst also contributing to pensions and paying off student loans. What more do people want?

It's a great salary but a fair amount of mumsnetters will try to say otherwise because they earn heaps more but live super frugally.
It's a game for bored people to play.

@JinglingHellsBells

Also, LONDON is a very vague place!

London can include places as far south as Croydon these days.

Central London is out of reach for everyone other than the 6-figure earners and you need 2 of them.

I know a couple in their 30s who bought for £600K- a 2-bed flat Zone 1- and both earned over £200K.

You dont need to earn a combined salary of £160k to buy a £600k property though.

Sorry £200k...

fridgepants: "...we can't afford to buy". You are not paying a mortgage so obviously you'll have more disposable income.

I agree raising the deposit is the big difficulty for young or even not so young people. It's a pain nowadays.

I earn £80k, and my husband earns a smidge more. We live in SE London. I suppose we have loads of cash coming in and whilst I never feel like things are tight, we don't live like kings either.

Once you've paid a mortgage on a house (modest, 4 bed semi, nothing fancy), nursery fees (over £2000k per month), supported others (through charitable giving and helping grandparents), and paid for private fertility treatment we don't have loads of left over cash.

However we do have private medical insurance and (pre-Covid) would take one foreign holiday each year, which obviously are unnecessary luxuries. As is my penchant for too much wine.

@peachcherries

It's not a great salary in terms of London wages. 40% tax rate plus expensive housing doesn't leave you with much. I would say it is comparable to earning £40k in the Midlands.

Which would also be around 87th percentile so would still be a good wage. If you're a single parent with three teens and no support from the ex etc it might not seem huge but it's still well advice average, both of them

@RubyFakeLips

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

A very fair point.

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

It's done by place of work so the figures are for those working in those locations, not necessarily living there.

The overall figure for London actually falls if you only look at London residents as many people with highly paid jobs commute in from outside of London. In fact, the median actually falls from £39,500 to £37,200.

You make a very fair point about location of workplace and residence.

Looking at the figures, some areas, for example Tower Hamlets, fell a lot. Other areas like Camden, Southwark, Hammersmith etc didn't really show any change.

But other areas did show a large increase. Notably areas like Kensington & Chelsea, and Richmond in particular saw very large increases in salaries. But even in these areas, £80k would still be a very high salary (median of £46.4k and 75th percentile is around £67k)

Other areas such as Islington and Kingston upon Thames also saw increases.

On the other hand of course, the City disappeared as hardly anyone actually lives there.

Yes I agree it's a good salary. And anyone who says otherwise lives in cloud cuckoo land.

Twatalert yes I do know that area.

It isn't 'leafy' and it isn't 'rough' - ordinary. Still the kind of area that I see non-Londoners and Londoners not-from-S-London getting the jitters about. It is expensive yes, because it is done up.

www.zoopla.co.uk/for-sale/details/56614418?search_identifier=6dd435de081bfea5e30410ec03a3d634

Also in good nick, between Streatham and West Norwood - an area that I regularly see people shuddering about on MN.

If you can afford £350k and need 3 beds...
www.zoopla.co.uk/for-sale/details/55608976?search_identifier=e2a318097d33c0bbaf5214f4bbb21fe7

@Juno231

It's based on place of work, not place of residence. That's why there are figures for the City.

Very many people work in the City but don't necessarily live in London

Yes: £80k is a high salary. The vast majority of Londoners manage on less than half. Many on a third.
No: it does not buy you a lot in terms of house and lifestyle in London, and not anywhere near the same levels as it would in a regional city or town.

Both these things are true.