Warning to graduate jobseekers with eyes on hot spots

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

The warning came on the same day a report claimed that graduate recruitment at Britain’s top employers is set to rise sharply in 2014, taking vacancies for those leaving university this summer to their highest level since 2007.

Market research company High Fliers Research said employers are stepping up their graduate intake by 8.7 per cent, the biggest rise in four years.

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

In the ten areas where it is most difficult to find a job, two of which are in Yorkshire and the Humber, 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 on a one-bed property of £325 is 21 per cent of the median monthly income of £1,640.

Bradford, also named as among the ten worst cities in the UK to find a job, has an average income of £1,595 before tax and a median rent of £390 a month, meaning rent represents 24 per cent of income.

In Oxford, where there are nearly two vacancies for every jobseeker, the average rent of £825 is 41 per cent of the median monthly income of £2,020.

The city where the highest proportion of income is spent on rent is London, where there are 1.44 people after every job, according to a recent study by staff at search engine Adzuna.

PricedOut spokesman Dan Wilson Craw said: “Landlords in our most economically successful cities are cashing in on young people who need to move to find work.”