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Canary Wharf average salaries

canary wharf view of financial buildings with high salaries

Salaries in Canary Wharf

Household income and average salaries in E14

Canary Wharf is a small private estate, famous for housing a considerable proportion of the U.K.’s banking and financial technology sectors. As a result, there are many questions surrounding who works there, and what they earn!

One question that’s frequently asked — how much is the average Canary Wharf salary? Unsurprisingly Canary Wharf is significantly above the UK average salary, but the amount might surprise you.

This article will give a quick overview of the average income in Canary Wharf, and estimates for the average salary in Canary Wharf. We’ll look at how it is calculated and how it compares with London, and the U.K. as a whole.

Financial data in 2020 is likely to be severely impacted by Covid-19. As a result — and to give a more accurate picture — all the data used in this article will be from 2019.

U.K. household income: £29,600

U.K. average salary: £36,611

Canary Wharf household income: £55,168

Canary Wharf average salary: £130,000

What is the average Canary Wharf household income?

The average household income in the ward of Canary Wharf was £40,757 in 2019.

This is according to Tower Hamlets data, making it the ward with the second highest household income in the Tower Hamlets borough.

  • 1st. St Katherines and Wapping — £47,331
  • 2nd. Limehouse — £43,068
  • 3rd. Canary Wharf — £40,757
  • Tower Hamlets median — £30,760
map of canary wharf household incomes

However, the ward of Canary Wharf is approximately three and a half times the size of the 98-acre Canary Wharf private estate.

As a result, the average household income is significantly different.

By delving deeper into the data we can split the wards into smaller areas and find the sub location that covers the financial estate.

The figure for household income solely within the Canary Wharf private estate is £55,168.

How does this compare with the U.K.

The average household income for the U.K. in 2019 was £29,600.

As a result, the average household income of £55,168 from the Canary Wharf financial estate 86% higher than the average.

Comparing average salaries

While Canary Wharf’s average household income of £55,168 is high, it pales into comparison to reports on ONS data, back in 2005, stating that the average Canary Wharf income was around £101,000.

Household income data differs significantly from salary data — not all those who work in Canary Wharf live nearby — but largely because the methods of calculations differ.

Here we will look at the differences in calculations, and try to provide an estimation of the average Canary Wharf salary.

Household income data is normally displayed in as a median, not as a mean. It is argued that the median gives a more accurate representation on the wages of the typical person, without skewing the data for extreme cases.

The mean measure of income divides the total income of individuals by the number of individuals. A limitation of using the mean is that it can be influenced by just a few individuals with very high incomes and therefore does not necessarily reflect the standard of living of the “typical” person.

Office of National Statistics

As an example, take a company with 11 staff:

  • Ten earn £10,000 per year, and the boss earns £100,000.
  • The median income is £10,000 — accurately representing the typical worker.
  • The mean income is £18,182, significantly higher than any of the employees were earning due to the bosses substantially higher pay packet.

We see this with the nature of firms that work in Canary Wharf, with the highest paid able to significantly skew data upwards.

The second difficulty in establishing data for just how high Canary Wharf’s average salaries are — the nature of the dominant employment there — finance, and it’s reward structure.

  • Unlike many careers, finance has a large portion of performance related pay.
  • As a result, base salaries are sometimes completely incomparable with the overall earnings of an employee.
  • Cash bonuses, differed stock options and allowances mean that salaries can vary considerably year to year.

As a result, among top paying companies it is common to see significant differentials between median salaries and median total compensation.

what is the average salary of canary wharf in london
London accounts for 49.4% of the U.K’s financial services GVA. One little known Canary Wharf fact — the Walkie Talkie building was also built and once owned by Canary Wharf too!

What’s the real Canary Wharf average salary?

The average salary of Canary Wharf workers has increased since the ONS report of £101,000 back in 2005.

  • The top 5 employers in Canary Wharf: Barclays Bank, HSBC, Deutsche Bank, J.P. Morgan Chase & Co, and KPMG, have increased their average salaries significantly.
  • In addition, their highest earners compensation— a significant proportion in Canary Wharf — has increased faster than average UK wages.
  • Despite the financial crisis in 2008, ONS data showed annual increases across UK salaries averaging 1.5% per year between 2009 and 2016, with larger increases since.
  • Median annual earnings increased by 33% between 2005 and 2019.

As a result, it is estimated that the average Canary Wharf salary in 2019 is approximately £130,000.

Summary

While the increase in real terms pay over the last decade is debatable, it is clear to see Canary Wharf has some enormous salaries.

Workers in the area earn approximately 3 and a half times the average U.K. salary, and household income on the private estate is nearly double the U.K. average.

However, the area helps to generate a massive amount of income for the U.K.

  • In 2019, there were 120,000 daily workers in Canary Wharf
  • The area supports nearly 400,000 U.K. jobs in total.

In 2019, the financial sector in the U.K. — of which Canary Wharf makes up nearly 10% — contributed a record £75.5 billion in tax in 2019. This is roughly 10.5 per cent of all government tax receipts.