Thanks for your reply.

I’m a recruitment consultant, so I’m particularly interested in this data and the conclusions being drawn. My honest belief is that the data is flawed and that the salary of an average person in Hull, for example, is not £32,000 per annum.

Firstly, I’d question the maths being used. Taking an average of the salaries on offer isn’t the right sum to be doing. That gives you the mean salary, which will skew results significantly if there are just a few high earners.

Technically, it is the average but it’s not giving us any meaningful social insight.

For instance, I’ve just done a search on http://www.adzuna.co.uk for permanent jobs in Hull.

It came up with 71 results – here is the distribution:

< £20k per annum: 26 jobs (36%)
£20k – £30k per annum: 23 jobs (32%)
£30k – £40k per annum: 15 jobs (21%)
£40k – £50k per annum: 1 job (1.5%)
£50k – £60k per annum: 6 jobs (8.5%)
£60k – £70k per annum: 0 jobs (0%)
£70k – £80k per annum: 0 jobs (0%)
£80k – £90k per annum: 0 jobs (0%)
£90k – £100k per annum: 0 jobs (0%)

Using the above sample, we can see that 68% of jobs being advertised in Hull are less than the £32k average that is being claimed in your article and only 21% of jobs are in the £30k – £40k bracket.

I am not a good enough statistician to work out what the chances are, therefore, of a couples' income totalling £64k or more. But it's not high, that's for sure.

So, our average couple aren't really a representative "average Joe" couple, who we might find in Hull. Statistically, it's more likely that 2 people are on a combined income of <£40k, which would be a ratio of x 3.98 annual income for a mortgage (nearly double the figure in your article).

I know there are a lot of assumptions being made here and I'm choosing figures to build my argument but it just seems far-fetched to believe that people living in areas experiencing the highest levels of unemployment, lowest levels of growth and highest level of child poverty are earning (on average or otherwise) higher than the national average salary (£26,500 in 2012 according to the ONS) and have the most affordable homes to buy when compared to their income.

To put it in perspective, according to the Child Poverty Map 2012 ( http://bit.ly/childpov1 ) 30%-40% of children in Hull, Salford and Sunderland live in poverty.

I accept that high unemployment will skew figures too, so perhaps it is the case that if you have a job in Hull, then it's not badly paid. I just think talking about affordable housing that is

"within financial reach for first-time buyers on average local incomes"

is a massively inappropriate term to use when a high proportion of local incomes is £0 and of those we're counting, the majority of people earn way under the figures being quoted.

I’d be interested to hear your thoughts.

Matt

£31,857 is the average advertised salary in the region for full time work (note that this doesn’t include part time work). It’s worth noting that the number of job seekers / people out work, particularly in the North East is looking increasingly dreary.

So, if you’re in full time employment in these areas, it’s highly likely you’ll be able to afford the majority of local properties on the market – the problem is, there are 30,000+ people in these areas claiming job seekers allowance (up to 50 jobseekers per vacancy in places like Hull). So those in part time work (or actively looking for work) don’t stand a chance.

“The study reveals that first-time buyers should head to Northern locations like Hull, Sunderland and Salford where average property prices at £159,286 are only 2.5 times the average local couples’ earnings. ”

This means the average income of an individual in Hull / Sunderland / Salford is £31,857.20p

That doesn’t sound right to me… but I might be doing the North a dis-service.