A home cost twice as many years of pay in 2025 as in 1984: 6.7 years against 3.3
Average UK house price over the year in years of median full-time pay, and the monthly repayment on it as a share of monthly pay. Great Britain pay, 1984 to 2025.
Latest figures
| Series | Period | Value |
|---|---|---|
| House price in years of pay | 2025 | 6.7 yrs |
| Mortgage repayment as a share of pay | 2025 | 39.5% |
Notes
- Years of pay measures the price of a home, not the cost of buying one: when interest rates were much higher, around 1990, a lower ratio than today still meant larger repayments.
- The mortgage panel is one illustrative buyer: a 10% deposit and a 25-year repayment mortgage on the year's average house price, at the year's average interest rate on new mortgages to households (Bank of England, from 2004). It is not what existing homeowners pay, and leaves out fees, insurance and saving up the deposit.
- House prices are HM Land Registry's UK House Price Index average for all property types, averaged over the twelve months of each year. The index's average is adjusted for the mix of homes sold rather than a simple average of sales. Before 2005 the UK figure comes from the earlier ONS house price index; before 2002 that index is quarterly, so each quarter's figure stands for its three months.
- Pay is the median gross weekly earnings of adult full-time employees in Great Britain, measured each April, times 365.25/7 weeks. It is one earner's pay before tax: it leaves out part-time workers and the self-employed, and since the 1980s more households have two earners, so households' buying power has grown faster than one person's pay.
- The series starts in 1984, the first year with a median for all full-time employees. Pay comes from the New Earnings Survey to 1996 and the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings from 1997; the effect of that switch can't be measured. Where ASHE changed method (2004, 2006, 2011, 2021) the new basis is used; these changes move the ratio by less than 0.1 years.
- This is a single UK figure: the ratio is much higher in London and lower in much of the North, Scotland and Wales. ONS's own affordability ratio uses median house prices and earnings for England and Wales by place of work, so its figures differ from these.
Sources
- HM Land Registry, UK House Price Index
- Office for National Statistics, Median gross weekly earnings 1968 onwards (NES and ASHE)
- Bank of England, effective interest rate on new mortgages to households (CFMBJ95)
More on cost of living
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