The housing affordability crunch appears to have been amplified as workers can now expect to spend more than nine times their annual income on buying a home.

New data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) revealed that full-time employees could typically expect to spend around 9.1 times their yearly wages in 2021 on buying a home in England.

It called the rise from the 7.9 times in 2020 “statistically significant”.

The situation in Wales is equally dramatic, with full-time employees there now likely to spend 6.4 times their annual earnings buying a home in 2021, up from 5.8 times the prior year.

The affordability crisis is being exacerbated by house prices and wages going in different directions in England.

The ONS says the average house price increased by 14% last year, a period when average earnings fell by nearly 1%, while in Wales average house prices rose by 11% while wages eked out growth of 0.5%.

The calculation of wages does include furloughed employees, which means that average wages could have been lower than usual, given the scheme allowed firms to pay 80% of staff wages until September.

On a local authority level, housing affordability worsened in 300 council areas – 90% of the total – while average house prices rose in 96% of local authority districts in England and Wales, while average earnings only rose in half of local authorities.