UK renters paying £8 per sq ft, £12 in London – ideal flatmate’s Q3, Room Rental Index
The latest Room Rental Index by ideal flatmate has been released for Q3 2019, looking at the cost of renting a room across the UK’s major cities and each London borough. You can find the full index report attached in pdf form, including current average room rentals, the quarter to quarter change, and the cost per square foot, but for any further comment or info, please get in touch.
The latest index shows that: –
- The average room rental cost across the UK is £584, up 1% quarter to quarter.
- UK room renters are currently paying £8 per square foot.
- The average room rental cost across London is £813 – the highest of all major UK cities.
- Renting a room in the capital costs an average of £12 per square foot, up from £11 at the start of this year.
- At an average cost of £1,025 a room, per month, Westminster is currently the most expensive London borough – a cost of £15 per square foot.
- Aberdeen is the most affordable UK city in which to rent a room costing just £4 per square foot – an average cost of £268 per month.
- London, Nottingham and Bristol have seen the largest quarterly uplifts in room rental prices, while Havering Lewisham and Hillingdon have seen the biggest increases in cost across the capital.
Co-founder of ideal flatmate, Tom Gatzen, commented:
“A mixed bag throughout the third quarter with the cost of renting a room on the up yet again across the majority of UK cities, although some of the more expensive areas of London and the UK have seen the rate of rental growth cool to a degree.
It’s still not clear as to whether the ban on tenant fees has led to a notable increase in rents and if it has, this certainly hasn’t trickled through to the nation’s renters yet.
On the whole, we’re seeing lower rates of rental growth quarter to quarter than we did earlier in the year, but with changes to the tenant fees only impacting new tenancies or renewals, we could be yet to see the widespread surge in rental costs that many are expecting.
While there have been some large uplifts across the nation’s more prominent cities and London’s peripheral boroughs, this increase is more likely to have been driven by tenant demand more than any other factor.”
You May Also Enjoy
Housing Insight Report October 2025
9 luxury property features to impress Christmas guests
No acceleration in rental EPC improvements despite policy push
London renters making it onto the ladder without a deposit
Prime London Sees Post-Budget Surge in £2m+ Listings
