Pensioners can see their retirement income vary by more than £25,000 a year depending on where they live.
Research by Royal London revealed the chasm between pensioners’ annual incomes across the UK.
The average pension income across the UK was £18,400 a year but this hid a greater regional divide.
All of the top 10 locations for retirement income are in London or the South East, with pensioners in the City of London having the greatest annual incomes at £37,900.
Meanwhile, the lowest annual income was in Stoke-on-Trent where the average retiree got £12,800 a year – some £25,100 a year lower than that of those in the City and £627,500 less over the course of a 25-year retirement.
Helen Morrissey, personal finance specialist at Royal London, said: "When it comes to pension incomes there is not a simple north south divide – it is clear they are highly variable across the UK with, in some cases, very prosperous pensioners living only a few miles down the road from those who are struggling."
Also among the bottom 10 local authorities for pension income were the London Borough of Barking & Dagenham, Hull, Southampton and Leicester.
Royal London analysed pension incomes for the 2015/16 tax year. Among the top 10 local authorities for pension income were the London boroughs of Westminster and Kensington & Chelsea as well as South Bucks, Chiltern and Guildford.
The disparity between pension income was narrower in Wales where incomes range from £18,700 in the Vale of Glamorgan to £13,900 a year in Caerphilly. Incomes in Scotland, meanwhile, ranged from £20,000 a year in Stirling to £13,900 in North Lanarkshire.
