Younger workers on an average salary for their age would take 13 years from age 21 to save enough for a 10% deposit on an average-priced house costing £285,000, according to interactive investor.

Saving this deposit would take them until 34 years old, assuming they saved a significant 10% of their take-home pay every year.

The situation is even worse for aspiring homeowners in London, said the investment platform.

Priced out

Young workers in the capital on an average wage could take 19 years to save to save enough for a 10% deposit on an average-priced house costing £523,325. That means they’d need to wait until they reach 40 years old to become homeowners.

Younger workers living in areas with cheaper house prices could obviously save up more quickly.

In the North-East, even though their average wages are lower, workers could save up in an average of eight years from age 21, meaning they might be able to get their own keys by the time they reach age 29.

Alice Guy, head of pensions and savings at interactive investor said: “Homeownership is a distant dream for millions of young people who may never be to own their own home. Saving 10% of your take-home pay is a mammoth effort and difficult to sustain for the long haul, with all life’s ups and downs.

“Young people face a stressful juggling act with the triple whammy of high house prices, large student debts and needing to save if they want to start a family. And on top of this, they also need to start saving into their pension if they want to achieve a comfortable retirement in the future.

“For previous generations it was relatively easy to live on beans and toast for a few years, knowing that homeownership would be possible after a few frugal years. But now young people have a long slog ahead and it’s easy for something to trip them up along the way, perhaps a period with lower pay or having children earlier than planned.

“It’s now almost impossible for many young workers to get onto the housing ladder without help from their families, meaning that there’s a widening gap between the haves and the have nots.”