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Pick where you lived, where you could have gone, and when. This replays real pay, rents and house prices in both places from then to the latest month.
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Each path saves what is left of its take-home pay after housing and everyday spending.
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This replays two paths: you stay where you lived, or you move somewhere else in the same country in January of a year you pick, from 2015 on. It is a salary comparison between cities and a housing comparison in one, using what pay, rents and house prices did in each place up to the latest month of data. You rent in both places or buy in both.
Both paths start with the same savings: enough for the cost of moving (£2,500 or $5,000 by default) and, if you buy, the bigger deposit. Each month, each path takes home its pay after income tax and National Insurance (UK, with Scotland’s own bands) or federal, Social Security, Medicare and state income tax (US), pays its rent, or its mortgage and upkeep, and pays for everything else a single person buys: food, transport, energy, clothes, going out. What is left is saved and grows at the rate you pick under the assumptions. A path that can’t cover its costs borrows at the going personal loan rate, and the page says so.
It is one person’s budget on full-time pay: everyday spending is what single people on that pay typically spend, excluding housing, from the national spending surveys’ income groups, adjusted for how dear each region or metro is, so the path that pays more also spends more. Rent is for a one-bedroom home. In the UK you pick council areas, London boroughs or regions, with median full-time pay from the ONS Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings. In the US you pick metros, with pay from median full-time weekly earnings scaled to each metro. Your pay, rent, home price and spending start at the local averages, tagged AVG, and you can type over any of them. That makes it a cost of living comparison between cities in the round, though tax is simplified: US state income tax is an approximation, and council tax and city income taxes are left out.
Two cases run with the calculator’s starting figures, one in the UK and one in the US. They are refreshed when the data updates.
Stay in Birmingham or move to Manchester in January 2015? By July 2026 you'd be £56,000 better off having stayed.
Stay in Pittsburgh or move to Houston in January 2015? By August 2026 you'd be $37,000 better off having moved.
Pick where you lived and where you could have moved above. Your pay fills in with the local figure for your start year (median full-time pay in the UK, typical full-time pay in the US), and the hint under it shows the same pay in the other place. Rent fills in with the local one-bedroom average, and everyday spending with what single people on that pay typically spend. Pay keeps its gap to the local average, so 10% above average in one place stays 10% above in the other. These are area-wide figures, not pay for a particular job.
Yes, in the round. This page compares pay after income tax and National Insurance (with Scotland’s own bands), rent or the cost of buying, and everyday spending for a single person, adjusted for each region’s prices (ONS, 2016). Council tax is left out. Pick any two UK council areas above.
Pick London and Manchester above. On London’s median full-time pay, a one-bed rent plus what a single person on that pay typically spends has come to a little more than take-home pay in most months since 2015, so staying in London borrows and the page says so, while Manchester’s lower rent leaves money to save; that is why moving there comes out ahead. Type your own pay and rent for a truer answer. Pay, tax, housing and everyday spending are counted; council tax is not.
Pick the US metro you lived in, then a Texas or Florida metro such as Austin, Houston, Dallas, Miami or Orlando, and the page replays pay, rents or home values and the savings gap since your start year. Neither state has an income tax, and take-home pay here is worked out from federal and state tax, so that counts. If you buy, each metro’s own property tax is included.
The page doesn’t look ahead. It shows what would have happened had you moved in a past year, using what pay and housing actually did since. Cheaper places often pay less too, so the result turns on whether lower rent or house prices outweighed lower pay. Typing your own pay and rent above gives a closer answer than the averages.
Moving costs are a one-off sum paid at the start by the path that moves, £2,500 or $5,000 by default and changeable under the assumptions. Tax is worked out from gross pay for each place and tax year: UK income tax (Scotland’s own bands) and National Insurance; US federal income tax, Social Security, Medicare and an approximate state income tax. You can switch to a flat share of pay instead. Pensions, 401(k)s, student loans and buying and selling costs are left out.