A survey from debt advice company ClearDebt has led the company to compile a 'debt map' of Britain, indicating which areas owe the most and how indebted they are in relation to their take home earnings.

The map shows that those in the South East are most heavily in debt, with residents of the City of London with severe debt problems owing on average £41,002. In contrast, residents of Kirkwall in Orkney, where the debt problems were the least severe, owed a mere £4,188.

The survey also compared debt in relation to income and found that although the poorest get into debt most often, it is the wealthy and middle classes who find themselves in more chronic positions as they are often approved to borrow much larger sums.

Nick O'Reilly, who is currently president of R3, the insolvency profession's trade body , said: 'People living in the City may well have felt happy with higher levels of debt until their circumstances changed.

'Similarly, people who move to the Isle of Man, as opposed to those who come from there, tend to need a higher level of income to do so. Should that income fall, their debts will become a problem and their scale of debt proportionally higher.'

'The high level of problem debt in Salisbury is of a piece with research showing that it is in the larger provincial centres rather than the big conurbations that these problems are concentrated. Reading [Berkshire] and Colchester [Essex] are others.'

The survey also found that men were more likely to have problem debts than women, particularly men over 45. Having children played a significant role, with parents owing on average £7,000 more.