The latest index from flat-sharing website SpareRoom shows that rents across the UK as a whole remained almost flat, increasing by 0.9% year on year to £748 per month.

In London there was a year-on-year drop of 0.4% in the cost of renting a room, to an average of £980 per month.

While this is down from the peak of £1,014 per month in Q4 2023, rents in the capital are still 26% more expensive than five years ago

Of the UK’s 50 largest towns and cities, Southend-on-Sea had the second highest increase in room rents behind Wolverhampton, with prices up by 5.8% year on year to £695 per month, followed by York, where rents rose by 5.5% to £751 per month.

The biggest fallers were Bradford, with rents down by 3.9% to £460 per month, Manchester where rents dropped 3.7% to £689 per month and Stoke-on-Trent, where they fell 3.3% to £502 per month.

The share of UK renters spending more than half their take-home pay on rent has increased from 24% in 2021 to 26% in 2025.

And three-quarters of tenants now spend more than 30% of their income on rent.

Spareroom director Matt Hutchinson says: “Rents are stabilising, but squeezed renters aren’t feeling anything close to relief.

“For people to be able to rent in their first choice areas, and maintain flexibility in the workforce, we need to see rents fall significantly.

“But, as long as high demand and limited supply are the status quo, we won’t see rents drop to levels that people would find genuinely affordable.”