Can essential workers afford to rent a flat in European cities? Mapping housing affordability in Europe

A couple in their forties, both social workers living in the Richardkiez area of Berlin, is considering moving out of the city. Why? After their baby was born, they realised that they would soon need an extra room, but renting a bigger flat in the area was beyond their budget. 

A fellow social worker in her early thirties is also seeking a different living arrangement. She shares a small room in a flat with other people and would like to live on her own. Despite having a full-time job, she cannot afford to do so. The same situation in a different city: she lives in Prague's Smíchov district.

These are much more than just anecdotal stories. Through its project, The Housing Games, the Urban Journalism Network assessed the affordability of rents for key workers in European cities and neighbourhoods. Looking at maps of Berlin and Prague, it can be seen that both social workers would have to pay more than 40% of their salary to rent a 50 m² flat in their respective districts.

In 2023, the Australian Urban Observatory published original research examining the housing situation of essential workers in cities across Australia. The data revealed that those in essential occupations, such as nursing and teaching, were being forced to live in cheaper housing areas. Consequently, their commutes became so long that certain areas were at risk of losing these key workers altogether.

Although no such data exists at a European level, our calculations — the first of their kind — paint a similarly dire picture, and experts warn that the implications are serious.

Commuting is problematic in itself. As Tagesspiegel reporters discovered, employers such as the Berlin fire brigade and Sana Kliniken AG, a major German private healthcare provider, say their employees are frustrated by their commutes. For shift workers, living close to a workplace is especially important. Working from home is not an option for most professionals in essential roles. Driving ambulances and cleaning the streets in the early morning cannot be done from home.

What might happen if rents continue to increase while wages remain insufficient? Zdeňka Havlová from Prague’s Institute of Urban Planning warns that “in cases where employees in strategic positions have salaries below the Prague average, it may become increasingly difficult for them to afford city centre housing, meaning they may have to move out”.

As our data reveals, the majority of essential workers do indeed have lower-than-average wages. This even extends to seemingly well-compensated professions such as university lecturing and judging, although doctors and paramedics are notable exceptions. It should be noted that the gender pay gap exacerbates the situation for women: a female paramedic has to work an extra day per month compared to her male colleague just to pay the rent.

In 2025, Ans Persoons, the Brussels State Secretary for Urbanism at the time, warned that forcing key workers to move out of the city could lead to staff shortages and worsen commuting, traffic, and fiscal pressures. Early-career workers in Brussels cannot afford to rent in any of the city's 19 municipalities. 

Not only is there a risk of losing people who already live in our cities, but we could also lose potential new residents.

Young people at the beginning of their careers are struggling particularly hard to find housing, as confirmed by data from Warsaw and Brussels, as well as Italian cities such as Milan and Bologna. Reporters from Gazeta Wyborcza found that many young people are considering avoiding the Polish capital altogether in favour of finding a job in a smaller town, where housing is cheaper.

As the pandemic made painfully clear, essential workers are vital to the functioning of cities. Many cities are already facing critical shortages in sectors such as healthcare and education, as has been widely reported. This situation could worsen. As cities grow, demand for places in kindergartens and schools will increase. Additionally, many cities are ageing, which puts more pressure on jobs in the healthcare and care sectors.

We know which sectors are already experiencing staff shortages and can estimate how much capacity will be required in line with urban development projections. However, what municipalities do not know is how many people are moving away due to unaffordable housing, and how many potential new residents are being deterred.

Some people are lucky. Take Kristýna, for example. She's a paramedic from Prague who managed to get a flat with lower rent from the hospital where she works. In theory, essential workers like Kristýna may also be eligible for social housing. However, there is a shortage of municipal apartments, and their number has been declining due to privatisation for a long time. Twenty years ago, Prague had 100,000 such apartments, but now it has fewer than 30,000. Only around 3,500 of these are occupied by key workers, while 105,000 key workers live in Prague.

Similarly, social housing in Warsaw could provide valuable support for people working in essential roles. Unfortunately, there are far too few of these units. The capital has around 80,000 social housing units, but over 70,000 of these are occupied. The waiting list for one of these apartments ranges from two to 15 years.

Unlike post-communist cities, where housing funds have often shrunk due to privatisation, Vienna's non-profit housing model has received widespread acclaim. However, even this model is starting to show cracks. Over half of the city's 750,000 rental apartments are publicly subsidised or managed by non-profit cooperatives, which keeps rents relatively low for long-term residents. Nevertheless, newcomers and younger workers often find themselves excluded from these benefits. Consequently, they are at the mercy of the private rental market. 

Surprisingly, a primary school teacher in Vienna has to spend 35% of their salary on a 50 m² flat, compared to 33% in Prague and 29% in Berlin. London is a completely different story, with teachers spending half their salary on rent. 

Cities are beginning to recognise this problem and are trying to find solutions. In Berlin, for instance, the state-owned company Berlinovo is constructing new apartments for key workers. According to the company, there are currently more than 5,600 apartments, a figure expected to reach 6,800 by 2029. 

“The plan is to build thousands of apartments. We are also renovating some buildings. Prague is currently investing in a number of projects in city districts where a certain percentage of the residential units will be available for use,” said a Prague City Hall spokesperson in response to our question about how the city plans to address the issue. 

But will this number of apartments be enough? Nobody knows.

The term “housing crisis” is increasingly being used by far-right parties: For example, the Freedom Party in the Netherlands and Chega in Portugal have made housing affordability a key part of their campaigns.

The housing issue is also gaining political momentum at the EU level. At the end of 2025, the European Commission introduced the European Affordable Housing Plan, a groundbreaking document pledging to address the issue of housing unaffordability across the EU. 

However, the impact of housing unaffordability on the provision of essential public services is only mentioned in the accompanying staff working document. This document is almost two hundred pages long and contains a subchapter on "Essential workers and supply of essential services". The Commission's staff refer to an earlier statement by the European Economic and Social Committee, which acknowledged that 'an increasing number of workers cannot afford to live near their place of work, resulting in labour shortages in vital sectors such as healthcare, education and public services'. 

Nevertheless, these documents lack data revealing the scale of this problem. 

For a long time, the housing crisis has been perceived as an inability to purchase a flat or a house. This has led to help-to-buy policies being introduced in many countries as a solution. However, these policies have not increased housing affordability; they have merely boosted investment in housing.

In recent years, however, public debate has recognised that rising living costs, particularly rent, are threatening the middle classes, particularly young people. The issue has been further brought into sharp focus by rising energy prices for European households in the wake of the energy crisis.

Who constitutes the “average” citizen of Berlin, Vienna, London or Brussels?

In Berlin, the “average” citizen – someone with the median city salary – can afford to rent in 70% of neighbourhoods. This figure is nowhere near reached by people in professions such as police officers, care workers for the elderly, firefighters, kindergarten teachers, social workers and sweepers. They can only afford to rent in a much smaller number of areas. While there are a few more affordable districts in Berlin, market rents in Prague and Vienna are completely unaffordable for essential workers. For these professions, rents are much less affordable than average statistics suggest.

Examining the data at a granular level for each neighbourhood and profession helps us reveal the inequalities that drive our cities. There are stark differences between districts, with higher-income residents accumulating in certain areas while others are pushed to the outskirts or even outside the city. 

The income gap between countries is widening, with some residents, such as university lecturers and judges, not earning enough to cover the cost of rent. The gender pay gap also widens notably in higher-earning, top-level positions. Most critically of all, however, income growth has failed to keep pace with rising rents and energy costs.

🤝 The article was written as part of the project collaborative The Housing Games, coordinated by the Urban Journalism Network.