>From a personal standpoint: I'm an above average earner but my quality of life in London is substantially worse than anywhere else I'd live (probably excluding San Francisco), we're coming towards a time where only the wealthy can live there, and the proles who actually do the hard work (cooking, cleaning, assistants, low-mid level employees) will need to be shuttled in from further afield.

I absolutely agree. I've personally noticed lots of people getting pushed out further and further due to rising costs of living. The situation we're in seems classist to an ever increasing extent. Directors, managers, people in finance etc all get paid enough to live comfortably, while even skilled workers in essential sectors are often not paid enough to live in a 1 bedroom flat within reasonable commuting distance.

For anyone wondering I did some Googling: average salary for a software developer in London is £43k (£32.6k after tax), and San Francisco is £77k (£52k after tax), about 60% higher. Cost of living in San Francisco is about 15% higher. This doesn't include healthcare or property taxes so take it with a grain of salt.

IMO it's not just rent that needs to go down, salaries need to go up. When I worked in a company that did client facing work they actively tried to hide our billable rates from us because it was so laughably higher than our actual salaries (about 20x, not including tax or huge amounts of unpaid overtime). A lot of people in skilled work are not comfortable with demanding pay rises and moving jobs if they don't get them, and a lot of un-skilled workers are not in the position to make such demands. That needs to change, far too much money gets funnelled not only to c-levels and directors, but out of the country entirely.