# A home, measured in years of pay

> Nine years of median pay in 2005. Nearly twelve now.

- Category: Housing
- Cadence: annual
- Status: Published on a annual cadence.
- Dataset key: `affordability`
- Source: [ONS](https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/earningsandworkinghours)
- Licence: Open Government Licence v3.0 — [terms](https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/)
- Canonical page: [https://londongraph.com/g/what-a-home-costs-in-years](https://londongraph.com/g/what-a-home-costs-in-years)
- Machine-readable record: [https://londongraph.com/data/what-a-home-costs-in-years](https://londongraph.com/data/what-a-home-costs-in-years)

## Methodology

Average London house price each December divided by median gross annual pay for the same year, from the ONS Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings via NOMIS. December is used throughout so the ratio compares a like point in the cycle. The earnings series is ASHE's resident analysis — what people living in London are paid — rather than the workplace series, which measures what London's jobs pay and reads about £3,000 higher. Residence is the denominator this question needs: it asks what a home costs the people who live here.

## Visualisations

- [Trend](https://londongraph.com/g/what-a-home-costs-in-years): Nine years of median pay in 2005. Nearly twelve now.
- [Change](https://londongraph.com/g/what-a-home-costs-in-years?view=change): Show the change from each preceding published period.
- [Indexed](https://londongraph.com/g/what-a-home-costs-in-years?view=indexed): Set each series' first visible value to 100 so relative change is comparable.

## Citation guidance

Attribute the original publisher named above and identify LondonGraph as the visualisation and methodology layer. Do not describe live values as a historical census, and do not present placeholder values as observations.