Average Salary in London 2026

The detail

London is the highest-paying region in the UK. ONS ASHE 2025 puts the median full-time salary for jobs located in London at £49,692 a year, against a UK-wide median of £39,039 - a premium of about 27%. It is the only UK region with a median comfortably clear of the rest; the next highest, the South East, sits at £39,983.

The gap between London's median and mean is striking. The mean full-time salary is £70,275 - over £20,000 above the median - because the capital hosts a dense concentration of very high earners in finance, law and tech whose pay pulls the average up without moving the typical worker. The median is the better guide to what a normal London job pays.

These are workplace-based figures - they measure pay for jobs physically in London, including those held by commuters from the South East and East of England. Residence-based pay for people who actually live in London is slightly lower, because some of the highest-paid City jobs are held by out-of-London commuters. Either way, London leads the UK.

The catch is cost of living. London's pay premium of roughly 27% is partly or wholly offset by higher rent, housing and transport costs - by some purchasing-power measures a London salary buys less than a lower headline figure elsewhere. A £50,000 London salary and a £39,000 salary in the North East can leave similar amounts of genuinely disposable income after housing.

To compare take-home pay on a London salary with one elsewhere, use our salary calculator - Income Tax and National Insurance are the same across England, so the entire difference in net pay comes from the gross figure, not the tax treatment.