How do people in public sector jobs afford to live in London/SouthEast?

[KateSW1983]

Always been curious about how people in public sector jobs can afford to live in London and get on the property ladder? We live in London but earn a good wage between the two of us. Looking around us - I genuinely have no idea how teachers, nurses, policemen, staff in museums, libraries etc manage to live in London. They clearly do and London obviously needs them but how to do they manage to afford living in this city? Clearly not everyone leaves the South East, but I do often wonder why people stay and how they can afford to stay.

I bought a shared ownership property just outside London (the border to the London borough is about half a mile from the house). We've been fortunate in saving working from home in lockdown so have been able to staircase to 100% ownership of the house. We live in a 3 bed semi, the rent on our neighbours house is more than double what we are paying for the mortgage!

My London weighting is 6.5k (band 6, inner London). and commute is an hour door to door, although I've not had to do it in over a year!

@therocinante

My friend lives in London, works for a local council, earns £55k. Lives in a nice leafy part of South London... in a house share with 3 other people which is fine but I wouldn't live in it. Has no hope of ever owning a house.

But they could buy a flat. On that kind of salary if you really prioritise saving you can save c. £1,000 a month, so in 2-3 years you can save enough for a deposit on a 1-bed or studio in one of the outer zones. You do have to accept a house in a leafy borough is never going to be available to you, but neither is it to most people, public sector or not. Saving isn't much fun though - I get it - and it's always a balance between quality of life and future aspirations. If your priority is a larger property you need to move away. I find the benefit of living in London with everything it has to offer and my large friendship group, offsets the downside of living in a smaller property. In normal times I'd be out doing something most of the time, so it didn't matter so much how big my place was. Obviously if you start a family your priorities will shift.

I didn't have children.

I work on the Tube. DH is a postal worker. We have a 2 bed flat in SE London which we bought in 2002. Can't afford to upgrade to a house, but we are comfortable where we are. We have free bus and tube travel through my work which helps. DD can walk to school. If we wanted a house, parts of East London and North Kent are affordable but these areas are less popular because of the crime status or because they aren't too pretty.

Once DD finishes school we'll move away to get our own garden and front door.