Prospective homeowners in the UK need to earn £53,600 a year in order to be able to afford the average .

Homes bought in the year to December 2024 cost their new owners £268,000 on average, according to the latest figures from the Land Registry. Given most companies require a deposit of at least 10%, it means the buyers would have needed a mortgage of up to £241,200.

Different mortgage lenders have their own rules about how much they will lend a customer based on their salary, but an income-to-loan ratio of 4.5 is often quoted as the most common. That means someone wanting to buy the in the UK would need an income of £53,600, assuming that they have the standard minimum deposit of 10%.

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That’s no trouble for high earners or couples who are both on the average salary, but bad news for anyone reliant on just one person earning the country’s average income. The average full-time salary in the UK was £37,856 a year in 2024. That’s £15,744 less than what’s required to buy the average home.

The shortfall between the average salary needed to buy the average home in an area and the average salary of someone living in that area varies across the country. London has the largest shortfalls of all. The average salary of someone living in Kensington and Chelsea is £51,376 a year.

That’s a whopping £162,624 a year less than what would be required to get a mortgage for the average home in the area. In the City of Westminster, the gap between the required salary and the actual average salary is £123,774 a year. In Camden, it’s £121,230 a year, in Hammersmith and Fulham, it’s £105,555, and in Richmond upon Thames, it’s £102,976.

Outside of London, the largest gaps between the local average salary and the salary required to get a mortgage on the typical home are all in the South East. The average salary in Elmbridge, Surrey, is £52,520 a year. That’s £90,680 less than what you’d need to earn in order to get a mortgage for the typical home.

St Albans has the next largest shortfall at £76,063, followed by Three Rivers at £71,637 and Windsor and Maidenhead at £71,126. The largest gap in the North of England is in the ancient city of York. The average home there cost £303,000 in the year to December. Average salaries there, meanwhile, are £36,972 a year, £23,628 short of what would be needed to buy the typical home.

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