Cleanzine: your weekly cleaning and hygiene industry newsletter 11th April 2024 Issue no. 1109
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Cleaners fare better than some when it comes to buying a first home (but it's not all good news)
Online estate agent HouseSimple.com has looked at the latest Office for National Statistics wages data and average prices for first-time buyers' properties, to compile a table of jobs where it will take so long to save for a deposit for an average UK property, that those concerned (unless they get help from the Bank of Mum & Dad), won't have saved enough until at least 2100. Cleaners aren't the worst off, but the picture is grim...
According to the research, the worst off are full-time bar staff on an average annual salary of £13,345, who would have to save for a staggering 112 years to get onto the housing ladder. Cleaners add domestics, meanwhile, earn on average an annual salary of £14,719, meaning they would have to save for 99.8 years to get the required deposit.
The most recent ONS Annual Salaries data** was used to compile the list of jobs, ranked by the length of time it would take someone in that job to have enough money for a deposit on a £198,309** property, the price of an average first-time buyer property in the UK according to the Land Registry.
HouseSimple calculations were based on savers putting aside 10% of their net salary every year for a house deposit, and that the maximum mortgage loan they could secure would be four-and-a-half times their gross annual salary.
"The list of jobs that are part of the 22nd Century Club, because people working in these jobs won't be able to afford to buy a property until at least 2100, include services that we rely on or use regularly; including hairdressers, cooks and cleaners," says HouseSimple.
"For example, a cook on an average wage, would need to toil away in the kitchens for more than 94 years to have a large enough deposit to buy an average first-time buyer property. While, on an average nursery nurse's salary, it would take an individual just over 91 years, saving 10% of their salary a year, to afford to buy."
The following table shows the list of jobs where the average salary would mean you're still saving for a deposit on an average first-time buy property into the next century, starting with the worst off:
Bar staff
Waiters and waitresses
School midday and crossing patrol staff
Kitchen and catering assistants
Hairdressers and barbers
Cleaners and domestics
Check-out operators
Launderers, dry cleaners and pressers
Shelf fillers
Cooks
Fishmongers and poultry dressers
Telephone salespeople
Pharmacy and other dispensing assistants
Educational support assistants
Sewing machinists
nursery nurses and assistants
Vehicle valeters and cleaners
Teaching assistants
Sales and retail assistants and cashiers
Housekeepers
Leisure and theme park assistants
Receptionists
Administration assistants
Alex Gosling, CEO of HouseSimple.com comments:.
"Of course, there are plenty of areas of the country where house prices are within reach of people earning lower incomes and the local prices are much lower than the UK average. However, large swathes of the South of England and London are so far out of reach of low-income earners, that home ownership would be impossible without a big withdrawal from the bank of mum and dad."
6th July 2017