Five great financial reasons why people in Yorkshire shouldn’t move to London: Sarah Coles

1. The pay isn’t necessarily higher

Anyone suggesting the streets are paved with gold will start with higher salaries, and on average, it’s hard to argue against. Government figures show the average weekly full-time income in Yorkshire is £708.20, whereas in London it’s £958.20. It’s quite a compelling gap, but it’s not the full picture.

The averages in each area hide vast variations, so in Yorkshire and the Humber, the best paid local authority is York at £766.40, followed by Leeds at £741.20 and Barnsley at £736.40. This is significantly ahead of the lowest paid local authority in the region – Rotherham, at £639.50. Similarly, pay in London ranges from £1,278.50 a week in the City to Redbridge at £710.60. As a result, there are five Yorkshire authorities with better pay than Redbridge.

Even these figures hide enormous disparities in pay. The Greater London Authority tracks pay after housing costs, and says that in London, the richest 10% have around nine times the income of the 10% with the lowest incomes. In the rest of the UK, it’s around five times.

1. You might struggle to get work

Cards on the table, there are a lot of jobs in London, with roughly 2.3 times as many as Yorkshire and the Humber, but there are also a lot of people vying for them. As a result, the unemployment rate is higher in the capital than any other region – at 6.5%. By contrast, in Yorkshire and the Humber it’s 5.5%. It means that even if in theory there’s more opportunity and potential in the capital, you might not be able to take advantage of it

1. You could pay more tax

If you’re lucky enough to snag a high paying job, you’ll pay more tax. HMRC estimates that this year there will be 5.32 million taxpayers in London, 1.75 million of whom pay higher or additional rate tax – that’s just under a third (33%). Across the country as a whole, there are 40.8 million taxpayers, 8.99 million of whom pay higher or additional rate tax – that’s 22%.

Having more higher earners in the capital also means more of them are subject to the punitive £100,000 cliff edge. Crossing the threshold of earning £100,000 forces you into a horrible tax trap, because at that point you start to lose your personal allowance. For every £2 you earn between £100,000 and £125,140, you lose £1 of your personal allowance. By the time you earn £125,140 you’ve lost the lot, so on that chunk of your salary you effectively pay 60% tax.

To make matters worse, if you have children, once you cross this threshold, you lose government support for childcare. This includes all entitlement to tax-free childcare, worth up to £2,000 per child per year, all of the 30 hours funded term time childcare for 9-month to 3-year-old children and half of the 30 hours for children aged between three and four. For someone with two children that might be worth more than £25,000 a year.

The childcare cliff edge is particularly painful for Londoners given the cost of care. The Coram Childcare study shows in 2025 there was a 10% rise in the cost of childcare for those who aren’t eligible for government support – so that 25 hours a week costs £210 in London, which is 29% more than England overall.

1. Housing costs will take a serious slice of your income

The cost of putting a roof over your head is one of the most striking prices people pay for living in London. A larger percentage of people rent than elsewhere in the country and rents are sky high. In July this year the average rent in the UK was £1,393, whereas in London it was £2,317.

For those who have bought a property, there’s a decent chance they’re carrying a much heftier mortgage, because property is so much more expensive in London – where in June prices averaged £554,000, compared to the overall UK figure of £272,000.

Higher incomes will make up for some of this, but not all of it. On average, rent swallows 39.8% of income in London, compared to 25.7% in Yorkshire and the Humber. The ONS classes anything below 30 as affordable and anything above 30 as unaffordable. It means a move would trade a manageable renting bill for a monthly struggle.

1. The cost of everything else

It’s not just housing costs that are higher in London. In general, supermarket prices are similar in most regions because supermarkets have national pricing strategies. However, Londoners are less likely to drive, so may end up doing more top up shops at the local convenience stores, where prices are higher.

Where part of the price of something is shaped by higher rent and wages, this will feed into higher prices too, including everything from childcare to a pint of beer and a portion of fish and chips. There may always be something going on in London, but there’s a risk you won’t be able to afford to do any of it.

You might look around you and wonder who could possibly want to abandon all this for London, but in the year to last June, more than 18,000 people made the move from Yorkshire and the Humber to the caital. So if you or someone you know is considering it, it’s worth them knowing the price they could be paying.

Gender pensions gap

A new report from the PPI has revealed that women aged between 55 and 59 have around half the pension wealth of men of the same age. It identified that about 39% was due to the part-time penalty women pay for working more flexibility around caring responsibilities. The impact doesn’t fade away completely when they return to work either, because women still face the gender pay gap, which is responsible for another 19%.

When women cut back their hours, their pensions take a hit. Some will be contributing a percentage of a much smaller wage, whereas others will feel they can’t afford to make contributions at all. Research by AJ Bell found that financial pressures push pension savings down the priority list at this stage in life – so only 8% of women prioritise their retirement savings at this stage of life, compared to 22% of men.

This is exacerbated by the gender pay gap when women return to work. Women working full-time are paid, on average, 6.9% less than men, but the gap widens as we get older to hit 12.5% in their 50s. That’s a sizeable difference in take home pay, but it also means that women are paying less into their pension each month, which has a snowball effect on their pot over time.