To think the London weighting of salaries will soon have to be rolled out to other cities?

[Waterloooo]

I’m in Manchester and rents and house prices are astronomical. They have been for some time.

I don’t know London well but when I search for rental properties there, there are plenty which seem to be in the same range as those in Manchester.

Granted these aren’t in the immediate City but they have much better transport links and resources in the capital.

I was also in London recently and the drinks and food (though expensive) only came to marginally more than they do in Manchester.

A few years ago everything in London seemed exorbitant in comparison to Manchester. Now, not so much. But my salary hasn’t really changed to reflect this.

Does anyone agree that it’s time the London weighting was rolled out to other cities that need it?

LWA is a drop in the ocean in the compensation of london prices and doesn't really help.
I'd prefer it if workers were paid appropriately and fairly.

Travel within London is horrendously expensive and I suspect far higher than Manchester? It can take an hour to get to work from zone 2/3 to the centre.

Companies will pay the absolute bare minimum in order to be able to hire the minimum number of people required to deliver their services/make their products. If they can't hire in a certain location, they will increase pay. So if they need to hire in Manchester and can't - supply and demand should dictate that wages will go up.

The public sector is a different matter, but the public sector "London weighting" bears no relation whatsoever to the increased living costs in the capital - it's far too low. But no government will increase it or extend it because of the narrative that the public sector is incompetent/lazy/pointless and should be grudgingly paid the bare minimum.

(I don't live in London. However I know that the highly skilled branch of the public sector that I work in struggles to recruit in London, despite the extra weighting, because the weighting is too low and there are lots of much better paid options for people with those skills living in London.)

I live in London but am from Manchester.
Manchester is becoming increasingly expensive and out of reach but it's nowhere near London levels.

The primary difference in London is there are no cheaper pockets/crappier areas where you can live cheaply. So no equivalent of Oldham, Rochdale for example. Everywhere is astronomical. You cannot choose to cut your cloth by living somewhere you're not too keen on in London.

Food and drink are comparable like-for-like but again you can find cheap and cheerful if you have to in Manchester, whereas in London cheap eats are hard to come by. Transport isn't much different imo.

Having said that as pp said London weighting is a bit of a joke anyway, it barely touches the sides when public sector pay is so crap anyway.