Londoners are £50,000 worse off due to 13 years of stagnant wages, report finds

Analysis for the Mayor found Londoners would be 30% richer if the trends of the 2000s had continued

A combination of inflation and ‘scandalous’ wage stagnation has cost the typical Londoner around £50,000 since 2010, Sadiq Khan says.

Analysis by the Mayor’s office found workers in the capital would be earning at least £10,900 more on average had the trends of the 2000s continued.

The average annual London salary in April 2022 – when the most recent available data is from – was £36,700.

This amounts to a fall of around 7%, or £2,900 when adjusted for inflation, since 2010.

But had wages continued to grow like they did between 1999 and 2010, the average salary would have risen more than 20% to £47,600, according to economists with the Greater London Authority (GLA).

Added up over the years, the difference amounts to £50,000.

The figure would likely be even higher today as high inflation has left the average Brit worse off than in 2022.

Gross annual pay in London, from 1999 to 2022, adjusted to April 2022 prices (Picture: GLA)

Economists mostly blame low productivity for the sluggish wage growth seen in the UK since the financial crash, though suggested solutions vary widely.

Professor Tony Travers, director of research on the capital at the London School Economics, said: ‘Low productivity is a UK-wide problem and London, despite appearances to the contrary, is not immune from it.

‘Investment in skills and housing, in particular, are essential to delivering better life-chances for individuals and a more productive economy for both London and the UK.’

Mr Khan said: ‘It is absolutely scandalous that millions of people in London and around the country have effectively become poorer over the last decade, losing out on up to £50,000, because their wages have not kept up with cost of living under the current Government.

Economists widely blame low productivity for the UK’s poor wage growth (Picture: Getty)

‘While the focus throughout this awful cost-of-living crisis has quite rightly been on rising food and energy prices, the Government should have done much more to tackle sluggish wage growth, which harms millions of people.

‘London is the engine of the UK economy – and when the capital succeeds so does the rest of the country. That is why we need to see the Government urgently invest in the capital and turbo-boost productivity and wages.

‘This has been a lost decade of wage growth. The Government needs to take immediate action to buck the trend and help put more money in the pockets of hard-working people.’

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Economists at the Mayor’s office say the worker would be earning on average £47,600 a year if the trends of the 2000s had continued.