Median salary 2022 was £33k. Median house price was £265k; over 8 times the median salary.
Not controlled for interest rates or changes in the tax codes, nor the increases in student loan debts.
Looking at: https://www.propertyinvestmentproject.co.uk/property-statist...
The average price in Q4 1999 was £75k, the average price in Q3 2007 was £184k, the average price in Q3 2022 was £273k (the last two are the peaks), the average price in 2023 has already started to dip. So, in 8 years prices went up 145%, and in the following 15 years prices went up 48%.
I bought in the latter half of that first spike I mentioned, and anecdotally, while I was looking but still unable to afford anything (ultimately, it was only possible when my bank changed their rules and afford 4x salary rather than 3x), prices in the area I was looking rose 50% in the 6 months prior to buying my house. In the years since then, its value has only increased by a little over 50%.
Looking further back, the previous peak was in 1989 at £62k. 10 years earlier in 1979 the average price was £19k, a rise of 226%.
So, this isn't a recent phenomena, what's recent is that people are more vocal in complaining that they can't afford to get on the property ladder. My point is that it's always been tough, but if people who can't afford now keep saving then in a few years they'll find their savings and wage increases will let them catch up with the house price plateau.
I think the only difference we've seen so far is that the last plateau wasn't very flat, and after an initial drop, prices have continued to increase but slower than inflation.