House prices rise at twice the rate of teachers' salaries

House prices have risen at more than twice the rate of teachers' salaries in the past five years, leaving many unable to get on to the property ladder.

Britain's largest mortgage lender, Halifax, said teachers would need a pay rise of up to £18,750 a year to be able to buy a home in Greater London or the south of England.

Halifax said the average price of a home in London was 6.75 times the annual salary a teacher in the capital would receive, compared with four times higher 10 years ago.

And the situation is not much better across other parts of southern England. Nationally, house prices have risen by 64 per cent during the past 10 years; teachers' salaries have increased by just 43 per cent, widening the ratio of house prices to earnings from 3.5 in 1992 to 4.

By contrast, housing has become more affordable for teachers in the North, Yorkshire and the Humber, the North-west and Scotland during the past 10 years. In the North-west a property typically costs about 2.68 times a teacher's salary, down from 3.06 times 10 years ago.

Schemes are in place to help some workers buy property in certain areas, including the Government's Starter Home Initiative, but Halifax said that more were needed.

The research comes as new figures are published today showing the number of trainee maths and science teachers fell last year despite a government campaign to recruit more specialists.

The proportion of male trainee teachers also dropped, making a new target to recruit more men into primary schools appear less likely to be achieved, according to teacher training performance tables.

The fall in the popularity of maths and science courses has occurred despite the Government's "golden hello" of £4,000 for new teachers who successfully complete the first year of their job. The introduction of golden hellos produced "a blip" of increased entrants in 1999-2000, the first year of the awards, but it was not repeated the next year.

A spokesman from the Teacher Training Agency accepted that the figures for maths and science teachers and male recruits were disappointing but said it expected an improvement this year.