Londoners have £8,000 more to spend or save than UK average

Big regional inequalities in disposable household income still exist, with Londoners more than £8,000 a year better off than the UK average, according to government data.

The top 10 local areas with the most leftover cash after tax and benefits in 2017 were all in London and the south-east, with the top six all in the capital.

Areas in the north of England and the Midlands made up the bottom 10, according to the figures released on Wednesday by the Office for National Statistics.

On average, each person in London had £27,825 available to spend or save, while those in the south-east and the east of England had £22,568 and £20,081 respectively. The UK average was £19,514. Regionally, Wales had the lowest disposable income, at £15,754.

Between 2016 and 2017, disposable household incomes grew in all regions except Yorkshire and the Humber, where it fell by 0.2%. The fastest growth was in London, at 2.2%.

The capital’s share of all UK gross disposable household income was 19%, significantly higher than its 13% share of the population.

Kensington & Chelsea, Hammersmith and Fulham comprised the area with the highest disposable income per head, at £60,343, more than three times the national average. Nottingham had the lowest, at £12,445.

England’s disposable income per head was slightly above the UK average at £19,988.

The total UK gross disposable household income in 2017 was £1,289bn. Of that, 86.3% was in England, slightly above its population share of 84.2%.

Wanda Wyporska, the executive director of the Equality Trust, said: “The ONS figures paint a picture of a country broken by extreme inequality, where society is truly divided by the have yachts and the have nots.”

A report last week by the Institute for Fiscal Studies said average weekly earnings among full-time employees in London were a third higher than the UK average and nearly two-thirds higher than in north-east England.

This month the Guardian launched London Versus, a project charting the deep divisions between London and the rest of the country, ranging from bus fares to life expectancies.