Wokingham and Elmbridge have been identified in the latest HL Savings & Resilience Barometer as the financial resilience capitals of the UK, with Hull positioned last.
The research found that local authorities in the home counties score highest for retirement resilience, while London and other cities, where renting is more common and homeownership is lower, scored lower.
In London, the lowest resilience score was in Tower Hamlets, despite its relatively high average incomes.
Hackney, Newham, and Barking & Dagenham also have low scores due to poor homeownership levels and pension savings.
Cities overall showed lower financial resilience, with 54% owning more property equity than average for their age, compared to 68% in rural areas.
Outside London, Manchester centre recorded low homeownership levels, with only 26% owning more property equity than average for their age.
City local authorities make up more than half of the 50 lowest scoring areas.
Rochford, Wokingham, and Hart top the list for highest home ownership levels.
Elmbridge and Mole Valley lead in the proportion of households who invest, contrasting with areas like East Ayrshire and North Lanarkshire, which have the lowest.
Hull features in both the bottom lists for home ownership and investment.
Sarah Coles, head of personal finance at Hargreaves Lansdown, said: “There’s a vast gulf between the capitals of resilience and the tougher areas where money is stretched and the future looks much harder.
“Among the top ten most resilient local authorities, 79% of households have enough cash left at the end of the month to be resilient, compared to 54% among the bottom ten.
Coles added: “Wokingham and Elmbridge are the resilience capitals of the UK.
“The home counties dominate the centres of financial resilience, which owes much to higher incomes – leaving them with £361 at the end of the month (£165 higher than the national average).
“They also benefit from higher scores for home ownership (69% – 13 points above the national average).
She said: “Meanwhile, the City of Kingston upon Hull is the borough with the lowest financial resilience in the country, where households have an average of £65 left at the end of the month – the lowest in the country.
“They also fare poorly in all sorts of areas from emergency savings (5th worst in the country) to the proportion who are on track for a moderate retirement income (7th worst).
“The fact it’s home to lower incomes is no surprise, because low incomes are so strongly correlated to lower resilience.
Dan Olley, CEO of Hargreaves Lansdown, said: “At the start of a new year, households up and down the country will be thinking about their budgets and how they can do more with their money, while at the same time companies like HL are thinking about how we can do even more this coming year to help people to secure their financial futures.
Olley added: “As the government conducts a comprehensive review of pensions, it couldn’t be a more important time to assess the nation’s preparedness for their retirement, and as ever the findings in this Barometer paint a bleak picture.
“There has been a fall in the proportion of householders achieving adequate pension savings across all income levels, as the value of a pot required for a moderate retirement has increased 40% since 2019.
He said: “Looking regionally, this trend is sadly exacerbated, with a gap of 24% in pension adequacy between richer South East pockets compared to those less affluent London boroughs and North East England.”
