The 12 cities with higher wages than London

Londoners are the 12th highest earners in the world according to Swiss bank UBS

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The Independent Online

It doesn't take a study to confirm that a work-life balance is harder to strike in London than elsewhere.

But now there is proof. The capital is the sixth most expensive city in the world in which to live and work, but its workers are not in the top 10 global earners.Londoners are only the 13 highest earners according to a survey by Swiss bank UBS.

While it is cheaper to live in Sydney, Copenhagen and Chicago, all three cities offer workers better wages.

The best deal is in Switzerland. Workers in the Zurich and Geneva earn the highest gross wages, while Luxembourg comes third. In Nairobi, Jakarta and Kiev, the lowest-ranked cities, workers receive only around 5 per cent of average gross earnings in Zurich.

The study, published every three years since 1971, compiles more than 68,000 data sets to produce a glimpse of the world in 2015.

Cities are ranked from a low of 6.3 (Kiev) to an off the charts high of 141. The mean is 100.

Their place in the index table is from 0-100, and in descending order based on gross wage.

13. London - Excluding rent, London is the sixth most expensive city in the world, and workers’ gross earnings are, on average, the 13th highest. UBS ranking is 75.8

The British capital of London is the third most expensive city in the world


12. Stockholm - Gross pay is 76.1 on the UBS chart

Water feature: the city sits between a lake and the Baltic Sea


11. Montreal - Gross pay is 77.4 on the UBS chart



10. Chicago - On a scale where the median is 100, Chicago is 85.4, making it one of the highest paid major cities in the US



09.  Los Angeles - LA is ranked 88.2 on UBS wage levels chart, putting it a little ahead of Chicago, but not as good as America's best paid cities



08.Oslo - Within the Scandinavian countries, Oslo has the lowest net wage bill thanks to high social security taxes. It is ranked 87.9



07. Sydney  - Gross pay is 89.8, behind LA and Chicago due to higher taxes

7. Sydney, Australia: Sydney is one of those places where you may feel you know the city already, with key famous landmarks like the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge


06. Copenhagen -  Gross pay is 92.4 but the workers are highly taxed too. Copenhagen loses 20 spots in the rankings, due to income deductions of around 45 per cent  (compared to 14 per cent in Zurich).



05. Miami - The second best payed city in the US, ranked 92.7 on UBS chart

An extended break in Miami Beach may be tempting, but US employees are taking less time off


04. New York City - New York City is ranked 100. It had the greatest variance across gross wages, signaling a different salary level for different levels of education; an educated department manager makes on average almost $120,000 more than a female factory worker

The Statue of Liberty arrived in New York 130 years ago today


03. Luxembourg - Ranked 106.4 gross on the UBS chart, the Luxembourg employment market is among the most attractive of the European Union. In January 2015, an unqualified adult could count on a monthly gross income of 1922.96 euros for 40 hours of work per week.

View of Luxembourg old town


02. Geneva - Geneva gross pay is 130.3 gross on the chart. It is one of the top three cities for wages and purchasing power

Waterworks: Geneva's Jet d'Eau


01. Zurich - With 131.5 Zurich tops the list. The average Zurich resident makes above $41 per hour before tax, 21 times more than a person working in Kiev. The cost of living excluding rent is only 2.8 times higher, while the rent is 4.4 times above the one in the Ukrainian capital. It is the city with the highest paid workers in the world.

A view over the Limmat river in central Zurich