Standing view · pay · City of London
deteriorating, held with established confidence, formed on 5 October 2026 from movements in 2025.
Pay in City of London has been falling behind, on the household income series. Household income per head was 117,313 in 2023 and 109,153 in 2024, both recorded as unfavourable against the usual pattern for their year. The hourly distribution in 2025 gives the shape of pay here rather than its direction: the 10 percentile was 17.6, the 25 percentile 23.45, the median 35.04, the 75 percentile 53.56 and the 90 percentile 79.17. Two consecutive annual falls in income per head is what the view rests on, and household income publishes once a year.
A view is formed only where the evidence names a figure you can check. Each movement listed as a reason had to be large enough to matter and distinctive in at least one way — unusual against this area's own history, unusual against comparable areas, or sustained over several periods. A movement shared with peers counts for less, because it says something about the country rather than about City of London. Where no figure supports a direction we hold no view rather than a hedged one.
| Measure | Period | Direction |
|---|---|---|
| Household income per head | 2023 | deteriorating |
| Household income per head | 2024 | deteriorating |
These figures carry no defensible direction of their own: a rising house price is good news to an owner and bad news to someone trying to buy, so we do not score one as an improvement. They are shown because they are part of the picture, and they did not decide the view above.
| Measure | Period | Series |
|---|---|---|
| 10 percentile | 2025 | — |
| 25 percentile | 2025 | — |
| 75 percentile | 2025 | — |
| 90 percentile | 2025 | — |
| Median | 2025 | — |