Cost of living: the one chart that shows why Londoners are the poorest workers in the UK

Londoners have the highest average salary but the lowest disposable income

Research shows a Londoner will end with serious debt or have to compromise on living standards (Getty)

Londoners are the poorest workers in the whole of the UK – despite earning the highest average salary in the UK.

The jobs website CV-Library has put together figures comparing average salary with the basic monthly cost of living in some of the cities of the UK. It found that the average salary in London is £36,905, just 16.6 per cent greater than the national average of £31,625 a year. However the cost of living in London is far more than in the rest of the country, meaning Londoners have less disposable income than any where else.

CV-Library said the numbers show that a Londoner wanting the same living standards as anyone else in the country will either end up in serious debt, or have to make major compromises in their living standards.

"Wages and living expenses in London are not relative to the rest of the UK, making Londoners the poorest workers in Britain,” Lee Biggins, founder and managing director of CV library, said.

“The fact that Londoners struggle to afford the bare essentials is worrying and may well affect the number of professionals that choose to work in the city; other cities are starting to appear as much more appealing prospects for UK workers,” Biggins said.