{"id":732559,"date":"2026-01-31T07:35:15","date_gmt":"2026-01-31T07:35:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/732559\/"},"modified":"2026-01-31T07:35:15","modified_gmt":"2026-01-31T07:35:15","slug":"the-salary-you-need-to-earn-to-rent-alone-in-london-in-2026-according-to-the-economist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/732559\/","title":{"rendered":"The Salary You Need to Earn to Rent Alone in London in 2026, According to the Economist"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s no secret\u00a0that London\u2019s rental market is\u00a0in a very poor state right now. As much as we\u2019d all love to have a place all to ourselves, eye-watering prices force\u00a0many \u2013 particularly young \u2013\u00a0Londoners to make do with a flat share. But how much would you need to earn in order to afford\u00a0renting\u00a0an apartment\u00a0of your own? And how does that compare to other major cities across Europe?<\/p>\n

The Economist<\/a>\u00a0has revealed how affordable flats are\u00a0in 28\u00a0European cities,\u00a0in what it calls the \u2018Carrie Bradshaw Index\u2019 \u2013 named, of course, after the\u00a0Sex in the City\u00a0protagonist who rents her rather nice New York flat on a single person\u2019s salary.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It couldn\u2019t help but wonder: can the average Londoner, like Carrie, afford to live in a decent\u00a0apartment on\u00a0their own while still having cash to spare for\u00a0designer\u00a0shoes and endless Cosmos? The answer, you won\u2019t be surprised to find out, is no.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The\u00a0publication goes by the general rule of thumb that rent is affordable when it costs no more than 30 percent of the tenant\u2019s monthly income. So, each city\u2019s\u00a0\u2018Bradshaw score\u2019 is calculated by dividing the average\u00a0local wage by the wage that would be needed to keep rent within budget. Any place with a score less than one is branded unaffordable.<\/p>\n

\"Barking
\nPhotograph: Abdul_Shakoor \/ Shutterstock.com <\/p>\n

The Big Smoke\u00a0got a \u2018Bradshaw score\u2019 of just 0.68 percent.\u00a0In London, the average wage is \u00a355,530 and the average one-bed flat sits at \u00a32,000 a month. That means anyone on\u00a0an average\u00a0salary would have to\u00a0say goodbye to\u00a044 percent of their income in order to rent on their own. To comfortably afford that and stay within the 30 percent budget, you\u2019d need to be earning\u00a0\u00a381,800 a year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

London\u2019s\u00a0not the least affordable of European cities though. There are eight places above it, including Lisbon<\/a>, Budapest<\/a> and Prague<\/a>. The city with the worst Bradshaw score is Georgia\u2019s Tbilisi.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The most affordable European city in the Economist\u2019s index is Bonn, which got a Bradshaw score of 1.33. And just like that… we\u2019re\u00a0moving to Germany.\u00a0<\/p>\n

ICYMI:\u00a0<\/strong>Here\u2019s how much it costs to rent in every London borough<\/strong><\/a>.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Plus: This is the best place to live in London in 2026, according to the\u00a0<\/a>Telegraph.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Get the latest and greatest from the Big Smoke \u2013 from news and reviews to events and trends. Just\u00a0follow our Time Out London WhatsApp channel<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Stay in the loop: sign up for our\u00a0free Time Out London newsletter<\/a>\u00a0for the best of the city, straight to your inbox.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s no secret\u00a0that London\u2019s rental market is\u00a0in a very poor state right now. As much as we\u2019d all…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":732560,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7757],"tags":[748,26824,393,4884,257,26825,2516,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-732559","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-london","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-categories-property","10":"tag-england","11":"tag-great-britain","12":"tag-london","13":"tag-news-property","14":"tag-property","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115988563465225493","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/732559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=732559"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/732559\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/732560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=732559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=732559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=732559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}