Key workers’ housing woes

28th July 2006

Key workers, such as police officers, teachers, nurses and firemen can’t afford to buy homes in two-thirds of UK towns, it’s emerged.

Research for the Halifax bank found that property was most unaffordable for those living in London and the south-east of England. But it also discovered that rising prices in the north of England, south-west England, the Midlands and Scotland were also putting home ownership and mortgages out of the reach of public sector workers.

Out of 519 towns surveyed, 339 (65%) were deemed unaffordable – that’s compared with 2001, when just under a quarter of towns were considered unaffordable.

Halifax arrived at its conclusions by dividing average regional property prices by average annual wages. It defined a town as “unaffordable” if the average price of a house was more than 4.46 times the average wage of the workers. That figure of 4.46 is the average income multiple that mortgage providers will lend to first-time buyers in the UK.

Unsurprisingly, the survey found that the biggest gap between the average wages of key workers and house prices was in London, with a nurse in the capital needing to get a mortgage of 9.5 times his or her income in order to buy a home. But this research also revealed that around 50% more towns are now unaffordable in the East Midlands, East Anglia, Yorkshire and Humber, West Midlands and the north-west of England, compared with five years ago.

18 of the 20 least affordable towns in the UK were in the south of England. Gerrards Cross in Buckinghamshire is officially the least affordable town in the UK for key workers, closely followed by Weybridge in Surrey and Ascot, in Berkshire.