Research Breakdown

Finding 1. The average financial cost of a commute into London is now £5,114 per year or 18% of the average annual London net post-tax salary.

Finding 2. The average daily time cost of a commute into London is nearly two and half hours per day when you combine the rail commute, travel to/from home to the station, and connecting London Underground travel to the office. Annually this equates to employees giving away an average of £10,020 worth of unpaid overtime to get to the office, based on the PayScale estimated average annual London annual salary.

Finding 3. When you project this commuting time over a year the average cost of a commute to London equates to 23.46 full 24-hour days per year. Over a ten-year period this is 234 full 24-hour days, which is the equivalent of one full working year of 24-hour days of a person’s life after you have deducted holidays. In summary, employees spend the equivalent of one entire working year of their lives commuting over a ten year period.

Finding 4. For parents, commuting time means the requirement of additional wrap around child care time and costs. The average cost of wrap around child care for London commuters is £12.17 per day or £2873 per year. This equates to an average of 10.01% of employee’s net post tax annual salary.

Finding 5. When you combine the annual cost of travel with the cost of wrap around child care the average London commuter is paying out £7975 of their net post tax salary per year to get to their London office. This equates to 28% of the annual average net post tax London salary.