Revealed - areas where tenants pay highest proportion of salary in rent

A lettings platform has analysed the current average annual rental cost of different parts of the UK and how that relates to average salaries. 

The research, by Bunk, shows that across the UK rents have increased from an annual cost of £7,871 in 2017 to £8,110 last year. 

With the average salary in 2017 hitting £26,713, rent accounted for 29.5 per cent of a tenant’s salary: looking at the UK as a whole this rose 0.1 per cent to £27,431.

However, this isn’t the case everywhere across the UK and while England, Wales and Northern Ireland have seen a drop in rent as a percentage of salary, this ratio has increased by 1.28 per cent in Scotland.

Unsurprisingly, the City of London is the worst in the UK where the average rent as a percentage of salary has increased from 35.9 per cent to 48.2 per cent in the space of just a year.

Richmond in south west London ranks as the second-worst area of the UK for rental affordability; the rent to salary ratio jumped from 31.9 per cent to 41.3 per cent in a year. Hackney in north London is third, increasing 8.9 per cent in a year.

Outside London, tenants in Rutland are now paying 35.1 per cent of their salary on rent compared to 29.2 per cent a year ago.

Nottingham is home to the next biggest squeeze (up six per cent) while Midlothian (up 5.6 per cent) and Edinburgh (up 5.5 per cent) have seen the biggest increase north of the border.