To save money on groceries, Seb Kouyoujmian rummages through the yellow-labelled reduced items in his local supermarket. He won’t buy shoes unless he absolutely needs them. Takeaways are considered a luxury. This might be surprising once you learn Kouyoujmian is an architect on a salary of more than £100,000. But, speaking from the cramped, one-bedroom north London flat he owns, he says that his quality of life doesn’t match what you’d expect given his pay cheque. “I’m earning more than ever before,” the 38-year-old tells me. “But I feel poorer than I ever did.”
It may sound ridiculous to the 96 per cent of the population who typically earn significantly less than £100,000 a year. In fact, the average wage in the UK is around £36,000, according to the Office for National Statistics. For people aged between 18 and 21, it’s closer to £24,000. And it varies according to region, getting worse outside of London.
