Can UK workers afford to rent?

The Gera Affordability Ratio (GAR) joins ONS salary data with ONS rent and UKHPI house price data to answer occupation-by-occupation, region-by-region. No estimates — real published government figures.

Most affordable occupations at UK average rent

Ranked by Gera Affordability Ratio against the UK average monthly rent of £1,383 (ONS PIPR May 2026) at each occupation's national median salary.

Least affordable — where rent takes the biggest slice

Browse all occupations

• Other nursing professionals£42,300/yr
• Primary education teaching professionals£45,939/yr
• Secondary education teaching professionals£47,632/yr
• Care workers and home carers£27,468/yr
• Sales and retail assistants£25,056/yr
• Programmers and software development professionals£56,914/yr
• IT business analysts, architects and systems designers£60,288/yr
• IT managers£56,438/yr
• Civil engineers£51,366/yr
• Mechanical engineers£51,110/yr
• Solicitors and lawyers£56,977/yr
• Finance and investment analysts and advisers£50,330/yr
• Financial accounts managers£48,980/yr
• Other administrative occupations n.e.c.£28,294/yr
• Management consultants and business analysts£53,295/yr
• Paramedics£53,818/yr
• Pharmacists£53,772/yr
• Midwifery nurses£46,990/yr
• Medical radiographers£48,439/yr
• Nurse practitioners£46,069/yr
• Higher education teaching professionals£52,835/yr
• Marketing, sales and advertising directors£94,135/yr
• Financial managers and directors£76,447/yr
• Train and tram drivers£76,327/yr
• Functional managers and directors n.e.c.£75,711/yr
• Head teachers and principals£72,192/yr
• Sales accounts and business development managers£57,625/yr
• Engineering project managers and project engineers£53,064/yr
• Health and safety managers and officers£46,444/yr
• Chartered surveyors£46,184/yr
• Special needs education teaching professionals£47,432/yr
• Biochemists and biomedical scientists£47,892/yr
• Production and process engineers£47,946/yr
• IT network professionals£48,907/yr
• Quality assurance and regulatory professionals£50,083/yr
• Managers in transport and distribution£47,504/yr
• Production managers and directors in manufacturing£58,640/yr
• Rail construction and maintenance operatives£46,403/yr

Frequently asked questions

What is the Gera Affordability Ratio (GAR)?

The Gera Affordability Ratio (GAR) is computed as: (monthly_rent ÷ monthly_gross_salary) × 100. A GAR of 30% or below indicates an "affordable" area according to the ONS private rental affordability threshold. GAR values above 30% mean rent consumes more than a third of gross income. The methodology is published at https://gerajobs.com/affordability/methodology.

What sources does the Gera Affordability Ratio use?

Salary: ONS Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) 2025 provisional, median gross annual pay for full-time employees by occupation × region, OGL v3.0. Rent: ONS Price Index of Private Rents (PIPR) May 2026, average monthly private rent by UK region, OGL v3.0. House prices: UKHPI April 2026, HM Land Registry, OGL v3.0. All three sources are official UK government statistics.

What does "affordable" mean in this context?

"Affordable" means the Gera Affordability Ratio (GAR) is 30% or below. This follows the ONS private rental affordability guidance: "an area is considered affordable if median rent is no more than 30% of gross earnings." (ONS Private Rental Affordability, England, FYE 2024.)

Does this include taxes or take-home pay?

No — GAR uses gross salary because ONS ASHE publishes gross (before-tax) earnings. On a net (after-tax) basis, the ratio would be higher. Use the GeraJobs Take-Home Pay calculator at https://gerajobs.com/take-home-pay to see your net income and recalculate against your specific rent.

Why is Northern Ireland excluded?

ONS does not publish a regional breakdown of the Price Index of Private Rents for Northern Ireland separately within the PIPR dataset (the Northern Ireland figure in the ONS bulletin covers NI as a whole without the regional sub-tables used for the GAR join). NI is therefore excluded to avoid misrepresentation.