Tools
UK affordability calculator
Estimate what you could comfortably afford anywhere in the UK from your salary, savings and household.
In short
The UK affordability calculator estimates the property value you could comfortably consider from your salary, deposit, household type and whether you plan to buy or rent, and what it would leave you each month.
- Runs entirely in your browser: nothing you enter is sent to us or stored.
- Guidance only, using standard lending multiples and typical outgoings. Not a mortgage offer or financial advice.
- Pair it with any area report to see whether that specific market is within reach.
Guidance only, using standard lending multiples and typical outgoings. Not a mortgage offer or financial advice. TrackPostcode.UK is not authorised or regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority; always seek independent professional advice before financial decisions.
How to read the result
Affordability has two halves, and most calculators only show one. The first is how much a lender might advance, which is driven largely by income and deposit. The second is what is left afterwards, which is driven by everything the first half ignores. A figure you could borrow and a figure you could live on are not the same number, and the gap between them is where people get caught.
Three things are worth doing with the output rather than simply reading it.
- Test it against a real area. Open the report for a place you are considering and compare its affordability score, which measures local prices against local earnings, with the figure here. A high personal budget in a stretched market still buys less than a modest budget in a loose one.
- Change one input at a time. Raising the deposit and raising the salary move the result very differently. Seeing which one moves it more tells you where your effort is best spent over the next year.
- Budget the costs the calculator does not model. Property transaction tax, legal fees, survey, moving costs and the first months of a new commute all land in the same quarter, and none of them appears in a lending multiple.
Buying and renting are assessed differently
Switching the plan from buying to renting changes the question from what a lender would advance to what a landlord and a monthly budget will bear. Many UK letting agents work to an annual income threshold expressed as a multiple of the rent, and rent is also the single most locally variable household cost in Britain, which is exactly why our cost of living score is built on it.
If the renting figure looks comfortable and the buying figure does not, the ranking of the most affordable places to live in the UK is usually a more useful next step than another calculator: it is a list of markets where local prices sit more reasonably against local wages.
The affordability and cost scores this calculator is meant to be read alongside come from the HM Land Registry UK House Price Index and the ONS Price Index of Private Rents, both published under the Open Government Licence v3.0. This calculator itself uses no personal data and stores nothing.
Questions about the affordability calculator
What does the UK affordability calculator work out?
It estimates the property value you could comfortably consider, and what that would leave each month, from your salary, your deposit savings, your household type and whether you plan to buy or rent. It is an indication of scale rather than a lending decision.
Is this a mortgage offer or a decision in principle?
No. It is guidance only, using standard lending multiples and typical outgoings. It is not a mortgage offer, a decision in principle or financial advice, and TrackPostcode.UK is not authorised or regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. Always take independent professional advice before a financial decision.
Why does a lender offer a different figure?
Lenders assess your full circumstances: credit history, existing commitments, the type and length of your employment, dependants, and their own stress test against future interest rates. Two lenders routinely reach different answers on identical figures, so treat any calculator result as a starting range.
Does it account for Scottish income tax or stamp duty?
No. Property transaction taxes differ across the UK, with Land and Buildings Transaction Tax in Scotland, Land Transaction Tax in Wales and Stamp Duty Land Tax in England and Northern Ireland, and income tax bands differ in Scotland. Budget for those separately.
How does this connect to the area reports?
The affordability category in every area report compares average local property prices with local earnings, so it tells you how stretched that market is in general. This calculator tells you where you personally sit against it. Reading the two together is the point of the site.
Are my figures stored?
No. The calculation runs in your browser. Nothing you type is sent to us, stored or used to build a profile, and no sign-up is required.