The surprising northern town where you can earn more (after rent) than in London

Workers should consider a move to Middlesbrough if they want to increase their disposable income, new data has shown.

Job website Adzuna compared the average salaries and rents of 32 cities in Britain, and found that London renters had the lowest take home pay after paying rent – with just £810 left each month.

By contrast, Middlesbrough, Sunderland, and Bradford were found to be the best value places to live, with workers spending less than a quarter of their salaries on rent.

Last summer, Middlesbrough’s Development Corporation Board signed off a “bright new vision” for a town centre transformation that could attract up to 4,000 jobs.

Renters in Middlesbrough only need to spend one-fifth of their monthly pay on rent, making their disposable income after rent the highest of all.

Middlesbrough was the only place in Britain where annual salary growth outpaced annual rent rises.

Workers in Sunderland similarly spent just 23pc of their income on rent, Adzuna found. The average take-home pay after rent in the city was £1,479.

It was followed by Leeds, where workers are paid an average salary of £38,397, the average take-home pay after rent is £1,634 a month.

Elsewhere, Bradford – where workers can expect to keep £1,600 a month after rent – also emerged as one of the best places to rent while maintaining a “budget for splurges”.

The area is also proving fruitful for jobs, following the recent news that Haribo announced plans to expand its West Yorkshire sweet factory, creating hundreds of jobs near the M62.

Adzuna analysed close to 1 million job vacancies posted to the site in November last year to determine the average salary being advertised in each one.

It then compared salaries to rental data supplied by property portal Zoopla.

Those with the least disposable cash after rent are based in London, despite having higher average earnings than anywhere else featured in the data. 

While workers in the capital earn £42,928 on average, it’s balanced against average monthly rent of £2,052. This means 57pc of Londoners’ monthly take home pay is taken up by rent.

Rent also wiped out nearly half the monthly income of those living in Oxford, where the average salary is £39,454 and rent is £1,614.

Adzuna said 18 of the 32 places in Britain failed to meet the Office for National Statistics’ recommended spend on rent, which is 30pc.

For high earners in big cities, the analysis paints a “bleak picture” in which up to half of some workers’ salaries were eaten up by rent, said Andrew Hunter, of Adzuna.

“Londoners, particularly, are in the throes of this harsh reality,” he said.

“Despite having the highest gross pay in the country, close to 60pc of their monthly income gets devoured by rent, leaving them just £810 for everything else each month – bills, groceries, and night outs, dimming the capital’s cosmopolitan allure.”

Jobseekers hoping to stick to the 50-30-20 budget rule, where 50pc of income is used for needs, 30pc is used for wants, and 20pc goes to savings, should “pack their bags and move to a city that won’t break the bank,” Mr Hunter said.