Experienced key workers are being priced out of buying homes in most of England and Wales, it has been claimed.

Conveyancing firm My Home Move said that unless workers including teachers, nurses and paramedics earn at least £40,000 a year, they have a less than 30% chance of being able to afford to buy a property in seven regions.

These are the east midlands, east of England, home counties, the whole of London, the south-east, the south-west and west midlands.

In London, key workers’  chances of being able to buy fall to around 1%. There are around 1m key workers living and working in London – and it does not look as though their chances of being able to get on the home ownership ladder are going to improve soon.

Despite the pace of annual house price growth in London having fallen to its lowest level for 42 months, it still stands at 6.4%, Hometrack reported this morning.

Compared with 2009, house prices in the capital are up 85%.

However, Hometrack said that it expects the rate of annual house price inflation in London to slow towards 0% over the course of this year.

The headline rate of growth in what Hometrack calls its  UK Cities House Price Index is now running at 6.9%, compared with 7.9% in January 2016.

In contrast to London, the housing recovery in large regional cities such as Newcastle, Glasgow and Liverpool has been far more protracted – house prices are “only” up between 13% and 16% since the downturn, said Hometrack. 

Bristol remains the fastest growing city with annual growth holding steady at 9.5%, although down from a recent high of 14% recorded in June 2016.

Outside southern England, Manchester is registering the greatest uplift with an increase of 8.3% in the last year. In addition to Manchester, London has also now been overtaken by Birmingham, and Liverpool, where similarly prices are rising off a lower base.