# When work does not cover London

> Employment, claimant rates, resident earnings and rent burden move on different clocks.

- Category: Money and business
- Canonical: [https://londongraph.com/story/when-work-does-not-cover-london](https://londongraph.com/story/when-work-does-not-cover-london)
- Machine-readable record: [https://londongraph.com/data/story/when-work-does-not-cover-london](https://londongraph.com/data/story/when-work-does-not-cover-london)
- Latest contributing release: 2026-08-02T22:02:46.546Z

A strong employment rate can coexist with household strain. Labour surveys, administrative claimant counts, pay estimates and sampled rents use different denominators, but together they expose the distance between having work and affording place.

## Evidence

### Labour market

Resident employment, unemployment and inactivity estimates with published reliability information.

- Current computed headline: Employment rate — 74.8% (Apr 2025-Mar 2026)
- Economic inactivity rate: 20.2%
- Release: Oct 2024-Sep 2025
- Dataset: `londons-labour-market`
- Explore: [londons-labour-market](https://londongraph.com/g/londons-labour-market)

### Claimant rate

Claimants as a proportion of residents aged 16–64 by borough.

- The dataset is not available on this deployment; no value is substituted.
- Dataset: `claimant-rate-by-borough`
- Explore: [claimant-rate-by-borough](https://londongraph.com/g/claimant-rate-by-borough)

### Resident earnings

Median annual pay for residents in the latest comparable release.

- The dataset is not available on this deployment; no value is substituted.
- Dataset: `borough-earnings`
- Explore: [earnings-by-borough](https://londongraph.com/g/earnings-by-borough)

### Rent burden

Two-bedroom median rent as a share of resident median annual earnings.

- Current computed headline: Kensington and Chelsea — 81.3% (Private Rental Market in London: April 2025 to March 2026)
- London median: 51.05%
- Release: Private Rental Market in London: April 2025 to March 2026
- Dataset: `rent-versus-pay`
- Explore: [rent-versus-pay](https://londongraph.com/g/rent-versus-pay)

## Interpretation

Survey estimates carry uncertainty, claimants are not everyone without work, and ratios of borough medians do not represent an individual household budget.

Every numerical claim is computed from the current versioned datasets at render time. Missing data is reported as missing rather than replaced.

## Sources

- [Nomis / ONS APS](https://www.nomisweb.co.uk/datasets/apsnew)
- [Nomis](https://www.nomisweb.co.uk/datasets/ucjsa)
- [ONS](https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/earningsandworkinghours)
- [ONS / Nomis](https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/inflationandpriceindices/adhocs/3389privaterentalmarketinlondonapril2025tomarch2026)