Pensioners in one central London local authority receive three times as much as those in Stoke

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old



The average pensioner living within London’s Square Mile enjoys an income that is three times as big as their counterpart in Stoke-on-Trent, according to a new analysis of government data that reveals “shocking” differences across the UK.



Recently released HM Revenue & Customs data showed there were about 1,000 older people living within the City of London, which includes the Barbican estate, who receive a total pension income averaging £37,900 a year.



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That means the City of London tops the UK table for pension income, yet just eight miles away lies the area with the UK’s second-lowest pension income. In the London borough of Barking and Dagenham, the mean average pension income that older people had to manage on was £12,800.



The only part of the country with a lower figure was Stoke-on-Trent, where the mean average was just £12,300.

The insurer Royal London said the figures “highlight shocking disparities in pension incomes even within the same region”. In some cases, “very prosperous pensioners” are living only a few miles down the road from those who are struggling on much more modest incomes, it says.

“When it comes to pension incomes, there is not a simple north-south divide,” says Helen Morrissey, personal finance specialist at Royal London. “While all of the top 10 local authorities are in London and the south-east, three of the lowest-income authorities are also in London and the south-east.”

The second, third and seventh spots in the table of the highest-income areas were also taken by London boroughs: Westminster (£29,500), Kensington and Chelsea (£26,700) and Camden (£24,000).



The local authority area outside the capital with the highest average pension income was South Bucks, in the county of Buckinghamshire.



Meanwhile, the two other areas in the bottom 10 of incomes that are in southern England are Southampton, where the figure was £13,100, and Slough, where it was £13,500.



In Scotland, mean pension incomes range from £20,000 in Stirling to £13,900 in North Lanarkshire. In Wales they range from £18,700 in the Vale of Glamorgan to £13,900 in Caerphilly.



The figures form part of the most recent personal income statistics, covering the period 2015-16, published by HMRC on 28 March this year.



• This article was amended on 3 April 2018 to replace the words “three times bigger” with “three times as big” .