I Ranked The Cheapest Places To Live (and Retire) In The UK

Finance-/economic takeaway (housing affordability framework)

The video ranks the cheapest places to live/retire in the UK using multiple affordability lenses, arguing that price-only rankings (e.g., house purchase prices) can be misleading because they ignore:

• Rent levels
• Local incomes
• Fixed-income constraints
• Health and life-expectancy context

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Key data sources (as described)

• Property Registry’s Housing Price Index

  • Uses average house prices by local authority
  • Framed as “10 cheapest vs 10 most expensive” (local authorities)

• Office for National Statistics (ONS)

  • Average private rents by council area (England & Wales only)
    • Scottish council areas not provided in full detail (only broader areas)
    • Northern Ireland not covered in the described dataset
  • Income Survey: average full-time salary by area
  • Life expectancy by area (women emphasized in examples)

• UK rental assistance

  • Mentioned as an affordability factor (no numbers provided)

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Tickers / instruments / assets

• None mentioned
  • No stocks, bonds, ETFs, crypto, or commodities referenced.

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Step-by-step methodology / ranking framework (explicitly used)

Step 1: House-price-only ranking

Rank local authorities by average house price using the Property Registry Housing Price Index.

Step 2: Convert to rent-only affordability context

Use ONS average private rent (England & Wales focus; Scotland only partially via broad areas).

Step 3: Rent-to-income ratios

Compute the portion of salary going to rent:

• Rent share of salary = (annual rent) / (pre-tax annual full-time salary)

Rank places by how much local wages are consumed by rent.

Step 4: “Leftover after rent” (after-tax cashflow)

Compute monthly take-home after rent:

• Monthly take-home after rent = [ \frac{\text{annual salary} - \text{income tax \& social security}}{12} - \text{monthly rent} ]

Simplifications used:

• Excludes pension contributions
• Assumes the person rents alone
• Reorders “cheapest” based on real affordability rather than price alone

Step 5: Fixed-income scenario test (nurse / retiree examples)

Instead of using local salaries, apply a fixed national income (e.g., nurse starting pay in England & Wales). Recompute affordability to reflect that income may not change with postcode.

Effect described:

• When income doesn’t “move” with the area, rankings revert toward rent-only dynamics.

Step 6: Add life expectancy as a second dimension

Reorder by life expectancy (women used as the primary example), then combine:

• Rent/income affordability and
• Life expectancy

…to identify “best tradeoffs.”

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Key numbers and rankings mentioned

House purchase prices (Property Registry Housing Price Index)

• Cheapest average house price: Inverclyde at just under £115,500
• Next: West Dunbartonshire, then Aberdeen
• Cheapest in England (buy): Burnley at £135,000+
• Most expensive: Kensington & Chelsea at £1.2M+
  • Over 10× the cheapest

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Rents (ONS average private rents; England & Wales focus)

• Lowest rent:

  • Hartlepool: £558/month (tied)
  • Powys: £621/month (central Wales example)
  • Burnley: £631/month

• Highest rent:

  • Kensington & Chelsea: £3,690/month

• Monthly rent spread: difference of > £3,000/month between cheapest and most expensive areas

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Rent burden vs local pre-tax salary

• Burnley salary: just over £31,000/year
• Tower Hamlets salary (near Canary Wharf): just over £66,500/year
• Lowest rent burden (best ratio): Cumberland (Cumbria)
  • Rent = 19.1% of local wages
• Second: Ribble Valley
  • Rent = 19.9%
• Burnley rent-burden rank: 21st
• Worst rent burden:
  • Kensington & Chelsea: rent = 97.1% of average local wage

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“After tax and rent” cash remaining (monthly)

• Ribble Valley: £2,436/month left after rent
  • Returned to #1 on this metric
• Burnley: a little over £1,500/month remaining
  • Ranked 109th out of 316
• Largest climber: Tower Hamlets
  • Jumped from 307th to 49th (driven by higher salaries)
• Worst: Kensington & Chelsea
  • £661/month less (despite local salary)

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Fixed-income scenario: Newly qualified nurse (England & Wales)

• Nurse starting salary (England): just over £32,000/year
• After taxes/social security: about £2,220/month (stated)
• Applied similarly for Wales (explicit simplification)

Re-ranking outcomes under fixed income:

• Hartlepool: becomes #1 (rent-only effect dominates)
  • Nurse has ~£1,660/month
• Ribble Valley: drops from 1st to 69th
• Tower Hamlets: falls to 307th
• Kensington & Chelsea:
  • Nurse short by ~£1,472/month
  • Conclusion stated: “couldn’t afford to live there”
• Many London boroughs:
  • rent consumes the nurse’s entire net salary
• Nurse central London supplement:
  • nurse pay ~£38,500/year
  • still a shortfall > £1,000 in Kensington & Chelsea

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Retiree/fixed income note

For incomes that “move with you” (e.g., state pension, annuity, final salary pension), “the cheapest” tends to mean the lowest rent.

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Life expectancy dimension (ONS)

Women’s life expectancy extremes (by area, reordered):

• Kensington & Chelsea: just over 87 years (best)
• Hartlepool: a little over 80 years (among bottom 10)
• Blackpool: 79 years (worst among mentioned)

Men:

• Average about 72.5 years (stated)

Gap described:

• Almost 7 years between the “cheapest vs most expensive” comparison, in the combined framing.

Caution/disclaimer embedded in interpretation:

• High life expectancy in an area does not guarantee you personally will gain those years by moving.

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Combined final examples: “best tradeoffs”

• Final (fixed income) cheapest in England & Wales: Hartlepool
• Rent-only match across the entire UK: only Dumfries and Galloway matches that cheap rent figure

Powys (second in combined final list):

• Rent: £621/month
• Monthly leftover: £1,597/month
• Women’s life expectancy: just over 83.5 years
• Claims: above UK average of 83 years
• Compared vs Hartlepool:
  • £63 more per month in rent
  • but higher life expectancy by several years (stated as “more than 3 years longer”)

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Explicit recommendations / cautions

• Do not rely on house-price-only rankings
  • Affordability depends on rent and local income
• For people whose income depends on location, rent-to-income is critical
• For people on fixed income (nurse case; retirees), rent-only affordability dominates
• Life expectancy is correlational
  • Moving does not automatically change lifespan
• Check rent + life expectancy together
  • Video suggests verifying with ONS data (about 10 minutes)
• Consider rental assistance effects before moving (no detailed numbers)
• Discuss the move with family/support networks
  • (Grandchildren frequency emphasized)

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Disclaimers / disclosures

• No explicit “not financial advice” phrasing appears in the provided subtitles.
• A methodological caveat is stated: treat results as comparisons between places, not necessarily a personal family budget.

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Presenters / sources

• Presenter/voice: Zack (introduced as “My name is Zack”)
• Primary data sources named:
  • Property Registry (Housing Price Index)
  • ONS (rents, incomes, life expectancy)
• Website mentioned: financialeducation.co.uk (additional planning context)