If you’ve moved house recently in London, or are looking to make the jump and live in our fair city, you’ve probably noticed something glaringly obvious: it’s very expensive to live here. Sometimes it feels like rents have gone up unceasingly, and that we’re paying hundreds more every month to live in smaller and smaller flats. In fact, the cost of renting has gone up in London by 37% in just the last five years. On average, we Londoners are paying almost £1,000 every month to rent in London.
Flatshare site SpareRoom recently dug into the data to find out just how much the cost of living renting in London has changed. They also found out where rents have gone up and down the most, as well as where to look for the most affordable rents in London.
Cost of renting in London
Over the past five years, the cost of renting a room has gone up by 37%. On average, a room in London now costs a whopping £995 a month. That adds up to almost £12,000 a year. Compare that to the same time period in 2020, when the average cost to rent a room in London was £728 (or £8,736 annually).
The increase in the cost of renting has been happening steadily over the past few years. In late 2022, the average room rent in London passed the £900 mark. Prices then peaked at the end of 2023 at a staggering £1,015 per month. And while they’ve since fallen slightly, they’re getting ever closer to the dreaded £1k mark again.
Said Matt Hutchinson, director at SpareRoom:
“Because of chronic undersupply in the London rental market, rents are stubbornly high and meeting affordability criteria – not spending more than 30% of your salary on rent – is rarely possible. When even the cheapest room in London is above £700 per month, hardworking people the capital relies on to function have little choice but to leave.”
Where are rents rising the most and least in London?
If you’re wondering where to look for a flat in London, then it might be wise to pay attention to the trends in rental prices in various areas in London. North London as a whole had the highest average rent increases in Londonincreasing by 2.1% over the past year. More specifically, these places have had the biggest increases in average rental prices:
- Strand/Holborn (WC2): +11.2%
- Blackheath (SE3): +8.9%
- Herne Hill (SE24): +8.6%
- Brockley (SE4): +7.9%
- Bethnal Green (E2): +7.8%
But it’s not all bad news. Rents are falling in some parts of London. E12, for example, had the largest decrease in average prices, with prices falling by 11% year on year. The other places in London with the largest decrease in average prices were:
- Manor Park (E12): -10.6%
- South Woodford (E18): -9.2%
- South Kensington/Knightsbridge (SW7): -8.3%
- Forest Hill (SE23): -7.5%
- Walworth (SE17): -7.2%
However, rent increases and decreases don’t tell the whole story. In some cases, areas with large falls were already extremely expensive and remain pricey after the rent drop. In other cases, already over-priced spots became even more exclusive and unaffordable. For context, these are currently the areas in London with the highest average rents:
- Strand/Holborn (WC2) – £1,674
- West End/Soho (W1) – £1,504
- South Kensington/Knightsbridge (SW7) – £1,498
- Holland Park (W8) – £1,469
- Chelsea (SW3) – £1,355
Affordable places to rent in London
The cheapest average rents are mostly found in the south-east parts of London. But rising rents in the likes of Blackheath (SE3), Herne Hill (SE24), Brockley (SE4), and Eltham (SE9) suggest that might not be the case for much longer.
That’s not to say that it’s impossible to find relatively affordable rent in London. (‘Relatively’ being a key word here.) Average rents in Manor Park (E12), East Ham (E6), Lower Edmonton (N9) and Chingford (E4) still come in at under £800 per month.
You might think the answer is to move out of London to a nearby commuter area. But some of these spots are also seeing big rent increases. Places like St Albans, which is a 20-minute commute from St Pancras, and Brentwood, which is conveniently situated on the Elizabeth Line, are seeing rent increases as a result of demand. In St Albans, rents are rising by 10% each year, while Brentwood is seeing 5% increases year on year.
Check out the average rent in every London postcode here.
