Sammie Ellard-King
I’m Sammie, a money expert and business owner passionate about helping you take control of your wallet. My mission with Up the Gains is to create a safe space to help improve your finances, cut your costs and make you feel good while doing it.
The average rent in the UK is now £1,320 a month.
That’s £18,840 a year just on keeping a roof over your head, according to Zoopla’s latest rental data.
But that average hides an enormous gap depending on where you live.
In the North East, the average rent is £760 a month. In London, it’s £2,224.
That’s nearly three times more for the same basic thing – somewhere to live.
The Rental Market Is Finally Slowing Down Though
There is some good news buried in the numbers. Rents are only rising at 2.2% a year right now. That’s the slowest pace of rental growth in four years.
The reason? Demand has dropped by about a fifth in the last 12 months, and the supply of available rental homes has gone up by 15%. More homes on the market and fewer people fighting over them means less pressure on prices.
It’s not a crash. But after years of rents climbing every single quarter, it’s at least heading in the right direction.
More news:
So Where's Actually Cheap to Rent Right Now?
If you’re flexible on location, Burnley is the cheapest city to rent in the UK at just £652 a month.
That’s less than what some Londoners pay for a single room in a houseshare.
Sunderland comes in at £661.
Hull is £674.
Middlesbrough matches Hull at £674 but is actually one of the few places where rents have dropped — down 0.5% on last year.
Here’s the full top 10, according to Zoopla:
Burnley — £652.
Sunderland — £661.
Hull — £674.
Middlesbrough — £674.
Grimsby — £683.
Doncaster — £745.
Aberdeen — £746.
Barnsley — £747.
Blackpool — £752.
Huddersfield — £771.
Every single one of those is under £800 a month.
In London, the cheapest borough — Croydon — comes in at £1,617.
That’s more than double the most expensive city on that list.
The Regional Gap Is Getting Wilder
The North East averages £760 a month in rent.
Northern Ireland is £854.
Yorkshire and the Humber is £869.
Scotland is £882.
Then you get to the South East at £1,397 and London at £2,224.
What’s interesting is where rents are rising fastest. Northern Ireland is up 11% year on year. That’s because it started from a lower base and people are catching on.
Places like West Devon are up 10.1% and Allerdale in the North West is up 9.9%.
The cheaper an area is, the faster rents tend to climb as people move there looking for value.
London, by comparison, is only up 1.6%.
Not because it’s getting more affordable — it’s because rents have hit what Zoopla calls an “affordability ceiling.”
People literally can’t pay any more.
What About the Cheapest Spots in Each Region?
If you don’t want to move to the other end of the country, there are bargains tucked away in every region.
In the North East, Hartlepool is the cheapest at £578 a month.
You get coastal living for less than a third of what you’d pay in zone 3 London.
In Scotland, East Ayrshire comes in at £602 — though rents there are rising fast at 7.7% as people move out of Glasgow looking for cheaper options.
Wales has Powys at £677.
The East Midlands has East Lindsey at £704.
The North West has Burnley at £642.
The West Midlands has Stoke-on-Trent at £752.
Even in the pricier South, there are pockets of value.
North Devon is £827.
The Isle of Wight is £951.
Thanet in Kent — home to Margate and Broadstairs — comes in at £1,021, which is drawing more and more Londoners down the coast.
London Is a Different Country When It Comes to Rent
The cheapest you’ll find in London is Croydon at £1,617 a month. Sutton is £1,628. Bexley is £1,638.
For context, the most expensive district in the entire North East — which is the cheapest region — is still hundreds of pounds less than the cheapest borough in London.
And at the top end?
Kensington and Chelsea averages £3,651 a month. That’s more than five times the rent in Burnley. For the same amount you’d spend on a one-bed in Kensington, you could rent five homes in the North East and still have change left over.
What This Actually Means If You're Looking to Move
The rental market is cooling, but it’s cooling unevenly. If you’re in London or the South East, don’t expect big drops — rents are flat because they’ve maxed out, not because there’s suddenly loads of supply.
If you’re willing to look further afield, the numbers are genuinely eye-opening. A couple both working remotely could move from a £1,600/month flat in London to a £650/month house in Burnley and save over £11,000 a year. That’s a deposit on a first home within three years.
The data changes every quarter, so it’s worth checking what’s available in areas you’d consider. And if you’re already renting somewhere cheap that’s seeing fast growth — like Northern Ireland or East Ayrshire — it might be worth locking in a longer tenancy now before the next jump.
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Disclaimer: Content on this page is for informational purposes and does not constitute financial advice. Always do your own research before making a financially related decision.
