A WORKER in East Renfrewshire can expect to take home almost £150 more a week than someone living in Moray, new figures reveal.

The Social Mobility Commission found the average weekly pay packet in East Renfrewshire amounts to £500 – compared to just £352.57 further north.

And East Renfrewshire’s working population are almost twice as likely to hold managerial or professional positions, according to the State of the Nation report into social mobility.

The stark gap is just one of many uncovered by the new index, which lays bare a “postcode lottery” where “the chances of someone from a disadvantaged background succeeding in life are bound to where they live”.

It found 93.8 per cent of pupils starting primary school in Fife were achieving expecting readings levels in P1, compared to just 64.8 per cent in Aberdeen.

Meanwhile, around 80 per cent of all pupils in Angus achieve the expected level in reading, writing and numeracy at P7 – rising to more than 98 per cent at S3.

But in Clackmannanshire, almost a third of pupils are falling short across the board.

East Renfrewshire and East Dunbartonshire report the best outcomes for their young people, with both areas boasting the highest qualification levels for school leavers and the highest entry rates into further education.

Clackmannanshire again comes bottom, with just 22.4 per cent of school leavers going on to higher education, compared to 60.9 per cent in East Renfrewshire.

House prices vary from 4.4 times the average salary in East Ayrshire to over eight times the average salary in Aberdeenshire.

However, this variance is far smaller than that in England – where house prices reach 38 times the average salary in Kensington and Chelsea.

Rt Hon Alan Milburn, chair of the Social Mobility Commission, said: “The country seems to be in the grip of a self-reinforcing spiral of ever-growing division. There is a stark social mobility lottery in Britain today.

“Tinkering around the edges will not do the trick. The analysis in this report substantiates the sense of political alienation and social resentment that so many parts of Britain feel. A new level of effort is needed to tackle the phenomenon of left-behind Britain."