Average rents up 2% nationwide - and London is soaring

The average rent in the UK is now £928 per calendar month, up by 2.1 per cent on the same time last year, according to HomeLet.

When London is excluded, the average rent in the UK is now £768, up by 1.7 per cent over the past 12 months. 

In London itself average rents are now £1,619, up by 4.0 per cent on last year.

But even this is smaller than the largest regional year-on-year increase which is in Northern Ireland, showing a 4.5 per cent increase between October 2017 and October 2018.

Scotland also performed highly - up 4.2 per cent in 12 months to £647 - while the largest drop of any region in the past one month was in South East England, down 3.2 per cent in just over four weeks.

Commenting on this month’s data, Martin Totty, chief executive at HomeLet, says: 

“Average UK-wide rents continue to increase year-on-year broadly in line with the current rate of inflation and the growth in average wages, meaning affordability in most parts of the country is little-changed.

“The exception is London and the South East, where average rents have increased above both inflation and average wage growth. In contrast to house price trends in this region of the country, activity levels in the private rented sector remain resilient. Landlords committed to the sector here seem able to command higher rents, potentially providing some offset to the negative headwinds of taxation changes some will have experienced.”

All HomeLet figures are based on new tenancies.