South is too pricey to be homely

Single lecturers who aspire to an average standard of housing will be able to achieve it only if they work at northern or Welsh universities, figures reveal.

Statistics from the Labour Research Department, a trade union organisation, show that a lecturer on about £24,000 - point 12 or 13 on the pay scale - would be unable to buy the average house in most areas.

Of the 171 counties, metropolitan authorities and unitary authorities in England and Wales that the study lists, only 60 would be accessible to lecturers.

No areas of the Southeast would be affordable. In the Southwest, only Plymouth would have low enough house prices.

The statistics show that housing problems for lecturers, already severe in London, are spreading.

Even a couple, both lecturers with a combined income approaching £50,000, would find themselves excluded from 29 per cent of the 171 areas in the survey.

In London, they would be able to afford an average house only in run-down areas such as Newham, or far-flung boroughs such as Barking and Dagenham.

Most of the Southeast would be off limits. Slough would be affordable but large tracts of the Southwest, including Bath and Dorset would not. On the positive side, even single lecturers in cities including Derby, Leicester, Nottingham, Liverpool and Manchester can afford average houses. Most of Wales is affordable, although Cardiff would be beyond many lecturers' means.