HOUSE prices in York have soared to nearly six times the average buyer’s earnings – making it one of the most expensive places to live in the UK, a new report says.

But when it comes to getting on the property ladder, the city lags way behind Oxford, where a mortgage offer is likely to be more than 11 times the size of a pay packet.

Oxford tops the league of surging house prices according to the research by Lloyds Bank.

In the top 20 least affordable places to live, York came in at the bottom of the table at number 20. “York was the only northern city to make the line-up of the UK's least affordable cities, at number 20,” a bank spokesman said.

“A home in York costs nearly six times average wages, while one in nearby cities like Hull and Sheffield would set someone back just over four and-a-half times their earnings.”

The research involving 62 large towns and cities showed the price of a home in a large town or city has grown by 5 per cent over the last year.

The average is £184,215 or 5.8 times someone's average earnings, compared to 5.6 times a year ago. In York, Yorkshire and the Humber, the average is 5.98.

Stirling and Londonderry were the UK's most affordable cities to live in, with typical prices 3.3 times the Scottish city’s wages and 3.6 times the Northern Ireland pay.

But Housing Minister Kris Hopkins said: “Home ownership is now at its most affordable since 2007.

"Leading developers have said they'll build more as a direct result of this increased demand, on top of the 420,000 new homes we've delivered since 2010."