In 1990, the average British home cost roughly three times the average salary.
By 2025, it’s nine times…triple the burden in a single generation.
This isn’t simply a market trend. It’s a structural failure…decades of political complacency wrapped in the illusion of “growth.”
While wages flatlined, property values ballooned, fuelled by cheap credit, foreign capital, and a planning system paralysed by short-term politics.
For an entire generation, the ladder has snapped.
The promise once passed from parent to child …save, buy, build…has been replaced by rent, repay, repeat. A worker earning £35,000 today faces house prices north of £300,000. In 1990, that same income could buy a home for under £100,000.
The result? A country divided between those who own and those who never will.
Ownership has become inheritance. Renting has become permanent. And the very idea of stability…a home, a family, a future…now feels like a relic of the past.
The numbers tell the story.
House prices up nearly 400% since 1990.
Wages, barely 80% higher in the same period.
Inflation widened the gap, but policy made it permanent. Governments of every stripe turned property into an economic crutch, using inflated house values to mask stagnation elsewhere. The result is a false economy propped up by debt and speculation.
Meanwhile, entire towns are hollowed out by Airbnbs and second homes.
Young families are locked into renting well into their 40s.
And a generation raised on promises of ownership now watches that dream auctioned off to the highest bidder.
The housing crisis isn’t about supply and demand anymore…it’s about control. Who gets to live securely in their own country, and who doesn’t.
The British dream of home ownership hasn’t died. It’s been sold piece by piece, policy by policy to keep the illusion alive.
Source: ONS / UK House Price Index
Compiled by: The British Ledger™
