"I earn £170,000 but I can't afford children"

The median salary in London is £49,692 — over £10,000 more than in other parts of the UK. But do Londoners feel well off?

Here’s what 12 capital-dwellers — from taxi drivers to tech workers, bankers, teachers and TfL staff — think about what they make.

1. Taxi driver, 55, female

How much you earn a year? Up to £80,000.

Savings portfolio: I save £600 per month, and have £25,000 in a savings account.

Housing costs: My mortgage is £1,200 a month.

Did you go to a state or private school? State.

Childcare costs: £28,000 a year in private school fees, shared with my ex-partner.

How much were you earning five years ago? £50,000.

Do you earn more than your parents did at your age? Yes.

Do you feel well off? No — I’m surviving. There is very little money left at the end of the month.

2. Commercial property manager, 34, male

How much do you earn a year? £350,000 plus bonus (last year this was £150,000 but the year before it was only £105,000, so it varies).

Savings portfolio: I save around £5,000 a month. Right now I have about £145,000 sitting in an easy-access account. I invest the rest, mostly within global index trackers plus equity in a couple of my own projects, totalling around £400,000. My pension pot is at about £380,000.

Housing costs: I own a three-bed Victorian house in Ealing, with a £4,200 monthly mortgage.

Did you go to a state or private school? Private.

How much were you earning five years ago? £265,000 per year.

Do you earn more than your parents did at your age? Yes, considerably. My father was a GP and my mother taught at UCL. They owned a bigger house than I do, though.

Do you feel well off? I feel comfortable rather than rich. “Well off” in London still means not being able to buy a family house in zone 1-4 without borrowing heavily and worrying about the weekly shop.

3. Actor/tour guide, 22, Male

How much you earn a year? About £17,000.

Savings portfolio: I save between £50-£100 a month. I have a pension with my tour guide job, which I’ve just started paying into.

Housing costs: I rent a room in a four-bed house on the zone 2/3 border in north-west London, which costs £750 a month.

Did you go to a state or private school? State.

How much were you earning five years ago? I was still in full-time education.

Do you earn more than your parents did at your age? No.

Do you feel well off? No. I tend to have maybe £50 or less left at the end of the month.

4. Cloud engineer, 37, male

How much you earn a year? £170,000 per year with a 10 to 20 per cent bonus.

Savings portfolio: I’ve been contributing to the company pension for a few years, but I don’t believe it’s very much. I don’t invest as there’s nothing left over

Housing costs: We bought a house last year for £770,000, and anything we could save is destined to go to the mortgage for the foreseeable future. We don’t feel we’re getting wealthier, just climbing out of mortgage debt.

Did you go to a state or private school? State.

Childcare costs: We don’t have any children yet, explicitly because we don’t feel we can afford them.

How much were you earning five years ago? £130,000.

Do you earn more than your parents did at your age? I have no idea. They were deeply in debt until they finally sold our family home, which I’m pretty sure was the only way for them not to be in debt for ever.

Do you feel well off? It’s relative. I feel well off next to someone who needs to worry about having enough to pay the bills next month or whether they can afford food. Ultimately, though, taxes are high, everything is expensive, we have a mortgage that will take us years to pay off and can’t afford children. One day, when that is paid off, we might start to feel wealthy.

5. Teacher, 56, male

How much you earn a year? £36,000.

Savings portfolio: I save nothing each month from my salary, but have over £1 million in my private pension from my previous career in finance, which I’m able to draw down from because of my age. I have about £250,000 in savings accounts and own two rental properties, which bring in around £100,000 each year.

Housing costs: I own a five-bed in Hampstead, which we’re putting on the market because it’s ridiculously big for two people.

Did you go to a state or private school? State. I’m proud of that.

Childcare costs: My two children are now adults, but both went to private school and had nannies, which cost a fortune.

How much were you earning five years ago? Technically nothing as I had retired from my last career. I then decided to retrain as a teacher and have been doing that for about a year.

Do you earn more than your parents did at your age? At my peak, yes — I was on seven figures and probably earned more than most people. Now, I’m not sure.

Do you feel well off? I don’t lose sleep over money, but do I go to bed every night thinking that there’s a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, like I used to? No.

6. Nutritionist, 39, female

How much you earn a year? I’ve been out of work for three months. My last salary was £80,000.

Savings portfolio: I had a six-month emergency fund saved, which has got me through the past three months. Previously I was saving £2,000 per month — around £200-£300 was going into stocks and shares, and the rest into an Isa. I was also contributing £350 monthly into a company pension.

Housing costs: I rent a room from a friend for £625 a month. My goal is to buy my own place.

Did you go to a state or private school? State.

How much were you earning five years ago? £37,000.

Do you earn more than your parents did at your age? Yes.

Do you feel well off? Yes and no. In my last role I was earning more money than I knew was possible for someone like me and saved a lot to go towards a house deposit. However I’m approaching 40, still renting and unable to have a kid due to the financial pressure of it all, so in that sense I feel like a perpetual teenager.

7. Communications lead, 45, female

How much you earn a year? £58,000.

Savings portfolio: I have £800 in a savings account and a property overseas, which I don’t rent out. I contribute five per cent of my salary to my pension each month, and my employer gives three per cent.

Housing costs: I rent a two-bed property in Greenwich for £2,400 per month.

Did you go to a state or private school? Private.

How much do you spend on childcare? £1,400 for my daughter’s nursery each month.

How much were you earning five years ago? £75,000. I switched careers but, after that training, have ended up in a slightly different area in which I earn less.

Do you earn more than your parents did at your age? No. My family give me £2,000 a month to help cover my costs.

Do you feel well off? No. I feel like life costs me £6,500 a month, which is more than I earn.

8. Body language expert, 79, female

How much you earn a year? £50,000.

Savings portfolio: I have £250,000 in my savings account. I sold my Hackney home for £1 million and use the proceeds as a pension.

Housing costs: I rent a flat in east London for £4,000 per month.

Did you go to a state or private school? State.

How much were you earning five years ago? £90,000.

Do you earn more than your parents did at your age? Yes.

Do you feel well off? Yes. I have a nice lifestyle.

9. Compliance worker, 27, female

How much you earn a year? £38,000.

Savings portfolio: I have £3,000 in a savings account and £9,000 in Premium Bonds.

Housing costs: I own my home and have a mortgage of £450 per month.

Did you go to a state or private school? State.

How much were you earning five years ago? About £19,000 a year while working part-time.

Do you earn more than your parents did at your age? Yes.

Do you feel well off? No, as some months I’m living pay cheque to pay cheque with no money left, and desperate for payday again.

Forget sex, let’s talk about money

A glass of red to help you swallow your retirement forecast? A Pilates class while you contemplate your portfolio? A new wave of London money clubs and events, combining food, booze and wellness with talks about money, are redefining how we learn about personal finance.

Pensions & Prosecco

Katie Binns, a financial journalist, founded Pensions & Prosecco (pensionsandprosecco.com) with wine expert Elizabeth Hawthornthwaite as a way of taking pension advice out of the kind of environment people associate with financial planning. They hold events several times a year at central London members’ clubs and co-working spaces in east London.

“I break pensions down into practical, manageable steps,” says Binns, “and Elizabeth takes everyone through the wines. We take anonymous audience questions and there’s an opportunity to make enquiries with financial advisers towards the end. It’s deliberately informal and there’s no hard sell.”

Pilates & Pennies

Kia Commodore, who runs the Pennies to Pounds financial literacy platform, recently held her first pilot event of Pilates & Pennies — a 50-minute Pilates class followed by a 30-minute interactive money session — at Orama Studios in Nine Elms.

“People are looking for different ways to engage with their finances,” says Commodore. “Money is inherently social and emotional. Bringing those conversations into community, wellness and cultural spaces can make talking about money feel much more accessible.”

Mad Money Club

Last summer Mad Money Club events (madmoneyclub.com) started popping up across Europe, including in Copenhagen, Madrid and Berlin, and this September the supper club, which brings women together over dinner with a themed financial conversation, comes to London, with discussions on wealth building and negotiating your worth.

“Women are statistically more comfortable talking about sex and death than money, and that silence has a real cost, financially and personally,” says founder Elisabeth Prager. “I also, selfishly, wanted more girlfriends to have the conversation with!”

Pocket Money at the Unicorn Theatre

Live financial education is extending to getting children to engage with personal finance this autumn, with Pocket Money at the Unicorn Theatre, from September 26 to November 1. Aimed at ages seven to 12 years, it promises a wild ride into the world of finance where children make the decisions, “empowering them to think critically about money, their choices and their future”.

10. Investment banker, 32, male

How much you earn a year? £475,000.

Savings portfolio: I have a net worth of £1.4 million, of which £200,000 is in my pension. I invest £4,000 a month from my base salary and almost all of my bonus.

Housing costs: I rent at £3,750 per month. The yield on property and the growth rate is lower than the mortgage cost, so buying seems silly.

Did you go to a state or private school? I grew up overseas.

How much were you earning five years ago? £275,000 a year.

Do you earn more than your parents did at your age? Yes, a couple of times more. I come from a lower-middle-class family.

Do you feel well off? Yes, I am comfortable. I recognise the blessed and fortunate situation I’m in — I’m on track to make at least £550,000 next year.

11. Head of operations, 33, female

How much you earn a year? £120,000 (plus discretionary bonus).

Savings portfolio: I have approximately £40,000 from selling my first house, most of it in a four per cent savings account, a few grand in Bitcoin and about £10,000 in cash ISA. I don’t invest much monthly since moving to London last November. I pay three per cent of my salary per month into my pension, plus a chunk of my bonus — I put £10,000 in this year.

Housing costs: Renting a two-bed in Fulham Broadway costs me £3,000 per month — it’s far too much (half my salary) but I’d never lived in London and wanted a space I loved.

Did you go to a state or private school? State and didn’t go to university.

How much were you earning five years ago? £60,000pa.

Do you earn more than your parents did at your age? Yes.

Do you feel well off? I feel comfortable for now but not for the future.

12. TfL station staff, 50, male

How much you earn a year? £48,000.

Savings portfolio: I save around £450 per month, and have a company pension to which I make additional voluntary contributions.

Housing costs: I own my house. The mortgage will be paid off within about five years.

Did you go to a state or private school? State school, but didn’t really get on and left early.

How much were you earning five years ago? £35,900.

Do you earn more than your parents did at your age? I’m not sure.