Job hunters hit by cost of city living

PricedOut, which campaigns for lower cost housing, said private tenants who work in England’s top cities for employment are paying £251 more in their monthly rent than the national average, but only earn an extra £167 per month on average, after tax.

While the nine towns and cities where it is easiest to get a job do offer higher pay, this is more than offset by the cost of renting, leaving young people spending 36 per cent of their typical earnings on rent, said the report.

In the nine areas where it is most difficult to find a job, the equivalent rent is only 24 per cent of local median income.

In Hull, where there are 32 jobseekers chasing every vacancy, the average monthly rent for a one-bed property of £325 is 21 per cent of the median monthly income of £1,640, the research found.

In London, where there are 1.44 people after every job, someone on average income spends 50 per cent of it on rent.

“These findings illustrate a broken housing market that is failing to make work pay,” said a spokesman for PricedOut.

The lobby group is calling for a large-scale programme of housebuilding in the priciest parts of the country to force down the cost of renting.