UK's worsening housing affordability

It has become increasingly difficult to afford a home given current pay conditions, and this has worsened in an uneven manner between different regions in the UK.

Housing affordability (when compared against average wages) has worsened across the country from 2012 to 2020, but more intensely so in the South East and especially in London. This follows ongoing conversations around the housing affordability crisis, particularly in London where housing prices are said to be spiralling out of control. In contrast, while affordability has generally worsened in the Midlands and the North, it has done so at a less intense pace.

This visualisation was created using data on annual household income estimates for small areas (MSOAs) and median house prices by MSOAs provided by the Office for National Statistics.