UK rents are up by 9.2% in a record yearly rise

Pedro Goncalves
·Finance Reporter, Yahoo Finance UK
Wed, 17 April 2024 

The borough of Kensington and Chelsea has the highest rent in the UK (Empics Entertainment)

The average cost of rent in the UK rose by 9.2% in the 12 months to February this year – the highest annual increase since records began in 2015.

The average private rent in Great Britain was £1,246 in March, which is £104 more than a year ago, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

Kensington and Chelsea remain at the top of the most expensive postcodes to live in the country, with the average rent hitting £3,305 in March. Outside London, Bristol had the highest rents, at £1,748.

In Wales, tenants were paying an average of £727 in March, up 9% or £60 from a year earlier.

Scotland saw rent prices jump 10.5% – some £90 more – in the past 12 months to hit £947 in March.


For Northern Ireland, the data only goes up to January, when rents increased by 10.1%.

The North East has the lowest rent in the whole of the UK, with tenants paying on average £662.

UK households were paying more rent for detached properties (£1,446), with flats or maisonettes coming in as the cheapest option, at £1,912.

The ONS also released data that showed average UK house prices falling 0.2% in the 12 months to February, slowing from a decrease of 1.3% in the 12 months to January.

Read more: The UK’s most expensive streets ranked

Across the UK, the average house price was £281,000.

In the 12 months to February, average house prices fell in England to £298,000 (a 1.1% decrease), were down in Wales to £211,000 (a 1.2% fall), but increased in Scotland to £188,000 (a 5.6% rise).

Average house prices increased by 1.4% to £178,000 in the year to the fourth quarter of 2023 in Northern Ireland.