Is £85k a good salary in London (family)?

[SleepDreamThinkHuge]

You may have been aware of a recent Twitter post where one guy was saying £85k a year in London for a family means you will still struggle. Other posters were saying it is not comfortable and definitely not rich. Others were also saying that £85k means your income is higher than 95 percent of the population in the UK. And some have mentioned just because you are £85k you do not need to send your child to private school it is a choice or buy a financed car.

Where do you stand? I can see both arguments but as someone who lives in London how I would love to earn £50k+ let alone £85k. Working in the public sector in a job I like means I earn just over £32k. In the near future, could earn closer to £50k in the next 5 years if I train, and take a more team leader/management responsibility. I think I am not the only one. A lot of people assume just because you live in London you are guaranteed to earn over £50k easily. Many professions are earning less than £50k in London (nurses, teachers, some doctors, police, public sector workers, banking staff in branches etc...

Earn less than half your salary and my mortgage is £1600 get a grip.

I guess the key expenses are childcare and mortgage. I wonder if new government initiative to extend free childcare will help with this 🤔

Yes but only right before the next general election.

Yes it is a very good salary

Again the thread is ‘is it a GOOD salary?’
You seem to be entirely missing that.
It’s only a couple on the average wage in London. In what world is bang average classed as good?

Exactly. Or more than that, if anything.

This is why it's stupid to say millions of people in London manage on less than whatever high amount is being talked about. Because we know some of them will be doing it with social housing, substantial top ups, the benefit of equity because they got on the housing ladder a long time ago or some combination of the above. The appropriate comparison can only be people with the same housing and childcare expenses. The fact is that some people in London are exposed to the full force of the insane housing prices and some are completely shielded.

They move a bit further out where rent is £500 or so less and nursery or childminder cheaper is it fair no but it's what they do which is why outer London has 70% non Ulez compliant cars and inner London less than 5....the rich live there.

@jannier and how much do you pay for childcare?! Because if you earn £40k you will be clearing £2500. So if your mortgage is £1600, how would you fund a full time childcare place? I live 40 miles from London and the cheapest full time place for an under 3 is £1400. £1600 plus £1400 = £3000. But you’re only clearing £2500. Please tell me how you do it?!

Why don’t you get a grip and learn how to do some basic maths.

And by the way, I wasn’t complaining about me. My household income is double my earnings and I don’t have any childcare costs now as my children are older. But I have lived in London and I do know how expensive it is for rent and childcare and what can seem like a huge salary to someone with my background (my dad never earned more than £20k) can be swallowed up quite easily.

I have a friend who had everything planned out nicely then she went for an ultrasound and found out she was having twins. Imagine paying for two lots of nursery fees in London. It would take the whole of an £80k salary. Crazy I know, but that’s what it costs.

It’s a real shame that you cannot understand how things are not the same countrywide and see things from other people’s
perspectives, not just your own. My brother is a teacher. He has a very comfortable life in a three bedroom detached house in the Midlands. If he moved to the area I live in then the exact same house would cost three times as much but he would get paid exactly the same as there’s no London weighting where I live. He wouldn’t have a comfortable life anymore! Now the answer on Mumsnet is usually to move. But if all the teachers, nurses, junior doctors, police etc moved we would be fucked.

@jannier
No not really- even further out which is the South East you will find that family homes are expensive. I read somewhere the average price of properties in the South East was around 500k. I appreciate this includes all properties but as someone who was living in the Midlands now in Hampshire its shocking how much more expensive it really is let alone London. Where I live now a lot of Londoners are moving there which pushes the house prices up further.

Basically 85k is a very good salary however in the South East and especially London depending on your personal circumstances including your age when you bought your first property and how many children you have as well as their ages it can be quickly swallowed up. Thankfully though that is only temporary which clearly people who are stuck on much less don't have those options.

Unless @SleepDreamThinkHuge comes back and tells us a bit more about their situation, I don't think we're going to get further forward on this one

We are on more than that as a family in the North and ok but wouldn't want to earn it in London. It's not as much take home as people think.

Housing in London is out of control and it is cheaper up North where I live. However even here the cost of a starter home a two bed terrace, not fancy they are ex mill houses has doubled in the last few years. The cheapest house in my town is now 180k, in 1999 you could still buy in a pit village up the road a house for 19k, it was a rough as a badgers arse area but very cheap. But in London it’s insane my house is worth around 330k I know where my MIL lives it would be a million minimum.

85k is almost three times the median annual salary so it’s a good wage but too many factors are variable.

Similar to our household income & we def manage in London (one dc at uni but we pay the rent), one working dc not paying us rent as they are supposed to be saving for uni. He finances his own life though & I buy him the very occasional item of clothing.
Our outgoings aren’t massive - we run two cars but mine is old and I don’t drive much. We haven’t had a proper family holiday abroad since covid for various reasons (dh and I have been but not w the DCs, or we’ve holidayed in the uk), DCs went to state schools, we go out & do regular things- go to theatre a fair bit which is pricey!

@jannier how can you say "get a grip" to someone stating the fact that after £2000 housing costs (average for London) and just under £2000 childcare costs (again average for London) therefore a take home pay of £4500 pm doesn't go very far?
If as you state you earn palm of that and pay £1600 mortgage then how do you pay for childcare / life expenses in general?

May I ask, what's your housing situation? If you have DC at uni, you might be old enough to have bought a decade or two ago when prices were a lower multiple of earnings to income? All bets are off if you private rent obv.

I earn £85k and work in London. DH and I chose not to live there because its astronomically expensive. Housing costs are extremely high and we got considerably more for our money in the midlands. So I commute down to London (stay a night or two) and then come back.

My take home after tax, NI and student loan is just over £4K. I have the undergrad and the post grad loan so it is around £750 a month in student loan repayments. Our mortgage here is £1k a month but would be at least £500 more (but likely even more than that) in London. We've chosen to delay children due to the cost of childcare in the midlands never mind London.

As so many PP have said, £85k after all the deductions isn't what you would expect. In London, as a household income with childcare costs and a mortgage, it wouldn't go very far at all. We worked that out and weighed things up and decided to buy in the midlands instead. The real issue is childcare costs and mortgage repayments (if you don't have a hefty deposit, which we didn't or lots of equity).

I guess it depends entirely on where in London? Around here 85k doesn't get you much. Rentals alone start at 3k for a tiny 2 bed. Childcare here is 2.5k at a minimum. Property prices here, you need to spend around 2m to get something decent.

85k is a good wage. It is crazy that starting out and buying in London you would need to be on 200k without inheritance and savings.

Child care is a major factor but thats for 10 years or so. Housing is a lifetime and everyone needs a place to live.

Agree Children in London are a choice. Unless twins I guess.

We own our own house - still have a mortgage though. Bought this one just under 10 years ago but dh has owned property since the mid-90s.

Depends on what you’re buying. There are plenty of 2 bed flats for 300k or even a bit under in my bit of SE London. If you won’t consider anything below a 3 bed semi in a fancy area then maybe, but that isn’t the only option. I bought my first property in London in 2021 for 200k with a 10% deposit earning 45k, but people conveniently forget less fashionable areas of zone 3/4 exist!

Interesting, thanks. I expect it helps a lot to have bought a while back. I can imagine it's probably a good place to be when you can access all the free stuff London has to offer and you've a good wodge of equity already.

I used to earn a little more than that in London and I was struggling due to th cost of a nanny (necessary for my job) and rent. I had family on benefits who were not any worse off (especially if you do some work, you will get your rent paid).

no doubt loads of people will post on here that they earn much less and are fine without revealing they have low or no housing or childcare costs (which are the biggies everywhere but especially in London).

This country has become a chronic low wage economy with majority of the population accepting handouts as a way of life and low expectations. Anything more than about £1.20 is considered a good wage nowadays. As long as it’s topped up by tens of thousands of top ups in benefits by the taxpayer.

These places are getting pretty expensive now. I think you'd be looking further out. Honour Oak was getting a million plus. Mad.