People who work full time in Westminster would need to earn more than three times their current pay to get a mortgage on an average home in the borough, according to a study of 75 UK cities by the broker Everest Mortgages.
The average house price in Westminster was £854,198 against a local median full-time salary of £52,610, the study found. With a 15% deposit and lending capped at 4.5 times salary, a single buyer would need an income of £161,349, which is 3.07 times local pay and a gap of £108,739 a year. That was the widest gap of any city in the ranking.
London as a whole came third. The average London home cost £554,000 and median full-time pay was £46,414, so a buyer would need £104,644, or 2.25 times what Londoners earn. Chichester was second at 2.30 times, and St Albans fourth at 2.14 times.
How the ranking works
Everest Mortgages took the average house price in each city, removed a 15% deposit, and divided the loan by 4.5, the multiple of salary that lenders usually cap mortgages at. It then compared that required income with the local median full-time salary. Every one of the ten least affordable places was in England: after the four above came Oxford, Cambridge, Brighton and Hove, Winchester, Bath and Bristol.
The figures apply to one income. A couple buying together would need the same combined earnings, so the gap narrows for households with two full-time earners.
A housing expert at Everest Mortgages said: “Many first-time buyers spend years saving a deposit, only to discover their salary still disqualifies them for a mortgage on the property they’ve been saving toward. Having a big enough deposit is only half the story, and a stable, sufficiently large income is equally important. In Westminster and Chichester, the deposit hurdle is real, but the income gap is the wall most buyers never get over.”
The study was sent to newsrooms on 4 September 2026.