City of London House Price & Rent to Income Ratios
How do City of London house prices and rents compare with local wages? Compare the cost of a home with annual pay, and monthly rent with monthly pay, using official source data.
Resident earnings are suppressed because the official survey sample is too small. We cannot calculate either ratio without a comparable earnings estimate. Greater London is a separate regional comparison, not a substitute for this area’s missing pay.
City of London house price to income ratio
Average house price divided by annualised median full-time resident pay.
House prices are available, but the ratio remains unavailable until comparable resident earnings are published.
This comparison does not predict mortgage approval or the number of years needed to save for a home. Deposits, interest rates, debts, tax and household spending affect what a buyer can afford.
City of London rent to income ratio
Average monthly rent divided by monthly gross resident pay, shown as a percentage.
No comparable official rent series is available for this area.
This is a comparison of area averages, not the percentage actually paid by every renter. A household may have more than one income, while bills, council tax and other costs are additional. Gross-pay and take-home-pay percentages are different; this page does not apply a personal affordability pass or fail threshold.
What explains City of London’s housing costs relative to pay?
UK HPI: August 2026 · Employment released 20 Oct 2026 · Earnings released 22 Oct 2026
City of London prices were higher than the London average
UK HPI puts the City of London average price at £726,633 in August 2026, 31.1% higher than the Greater London average of £554,430. The evidence supplied contains no resident earnings or rent values, so it cannot show whether housing costs, earnings or both account arithmetically for local price/pay or rent/pay gaps.
Prices fell over the year
The City of London average price was 14.6% lower over the year to August 2026. Its annual rate was 12.4 percentage points lower than Greater London's in the same month. ASHE earnings are labelled 2026, while the labour survey period is Jul 2025-Jun 2026 / ASHE 2026; earnings figures are not supplied here, so no price/pay comparison can be made.
Analysis refreshes with the published source data. ONS housing statistics · UK HPI · Nomis labour statistics
Compare City of London with other areas
All rows use the same source periods and calculation. Regional and UK figures use their own official price, rent and pay series; they are not averages of the local ratios.
| Area | House price | Monthly rent | Annualised pay | Price / pay | Rent / pay |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| City of London | £726,633 | No data | No data | Unavailable | Unavailable |
| Greater London | £554,430 | £2,338 | £50,300 | 11.0× | 56% |
| United Kingdom | £273,037 | £1,406 | £42,182 | 6.5× | 40% |
Source dates, definitions and changes over time
House prices are UK HPI mix-adjusted average prices for August 2026. A comparable official rent series is unavailable for this area. Pay is the median gross weekly earnings of full-time employees living in the area, annualised by the source pipeline, from ASHE 2026.
The boundary is City of London local authority (E09000001), not a postcode district or a wider city region. Individuals’ earnings are not the same as total household income.
Our house-price comparison differs from the official ONS median-price-to-earnings series. The ONS private-rental affordability statistic uses private-renting household income; this page uses individual resident pay. Those measures should not be compared as though their denominators were identical.
Prices and rents refresh monthly; earnings typically update annually. A true historical ratio needs earnings for each historical period. We do not divide historical prices by today’s pay and present that as historical affordability.
- Source 1: gov.uk — UK House Price Index
- Source 2: nomisweb.co.uk — resident earnings
- Source 3: ons.gov.uk — ONS data and methodology
- Source 4: ons.gov.uk — ONS data and methodology
- Source 5: nomisweb.co.uk — resident earnings
- Source 6: ons.gov.uk — ONS data and methodology
ONS housing affordability definition · ONS rental affordability methodology