Rents in UK are at record highs. Will they keep going up?

Rents in the UK are now at the highest point on record, leaving renters on low incomes struggling to keep up or find an affordable place to live – but there are signs that the rental boom is starting to fizzle out in 2026.

Average private rents in the UK increased by 3.3% to £1,383 a month in the 12 months up to May 2026, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS). 

The rate at which rents are rising has been falling in recent months, although the May figure showed a slight increase, up from an annual 3.5% increase recorded in the year up to April.

However, with UK inflation currently at 2.8% and wage growth at 3.4%, rents have largely been outstripping both in recent times with renters feeling the pain of rising bills too.

Read more:

• Sky-high rents mean ageing tenants ‘won’t be able to retire’ – adding billions to the benefits bill
• Good news for renters – the rental boom is finally over, says Zoopla
• Rise of the good landlords: Inside the movement to make the private rental sector tackle homelessness

Ben Twomey, chief executive at Generation Rent, said: “Homes are the foundations of our lives, but rents continue to rise faster than our wages, swallowing more and more of our income. High rents push people into homelessness and trap them in temporary accommodation, they pull children into poverty and prevent people from saving for the future. 

“We rightly have caps on our energy and water bills, but the same protections don’t exist to stop landlords from pricing us out of our homes. The government can and must act through devolving powers to mayors to limit rent increases in their areas.”

The devolved countries in the UK have engaged with the issue of rising rents more directly than Westminster in recent years. The Scottish government limited rent increases and banned evictions during the cost of living crisis and are planning long-term rent controls. The Welsh government has also consulted on the idea of bringing in rent controls.

How much is rent in UK?

Around 4.7 million households use the private rented sector in England with 11 million renters. Around 450,000 households in Wales are private renters while 887,000 households renting in Scotland, including 323,000 renting privately.

The private rented sector is now the second biggest tenure of housing in England behind owner occupiers, amounting to around a fifth of all households in the country.

The most recent ONS statistics show average rents increased 3.4% annually to £1,444 a month in England, rose 4.7% to £836 in Wales and 1% to £1,009 in Scotland in the year up to May 2026.

Renters in London are seeing rents 2% higher than in May 2025 at an average price of £2,294. Rent inflation in London is rising at the lowest rate in the UK and February’s increase from 1.1% to 1.7% was the first rise since November 2024.

The highest average rent across the UK is found in the London borough of Kensington and Chelsea at £3,591 a month. Outside London, average rents are highest in Oxford at £1,958 a month.

Private rents are rising at the fastest rate in the north-east of England, up 5.9% in the last year. However, rents in the North East are considered the lowest on average in England at £776 a month.

Overall, rent rises have been outpacing wage growth for virtually two years but the good news is that the gap between the two is closing.

Around 1.2 million private rented households have reported finding it difficult to pay rent, according to the English Housing Survey.

The proportion of income that tenants typically spend on rent has been rising in recent years for renters in England.

In England, renters on the medium household income could expect to spend 36.3% of their income on an average-priced rented home. Analysis from Resolution Foundation found the average monthly rent in 2024 was more than £200 above affordable levels.

That rises to 41.6% in London, where all of the local authorities with the least affordable rents are located, according to the Office for National Statistics.

Housing is deemed affordable when renters spend less than 30% of their incomes on their housing costs.

Tenants typically spend 25.9% of their income on rent in Wales and 25.3% in Northern Ireland.

The Westminster government unfroze local housing allowance in April 2024 but tenants on low incomes are still facing a challenge to keep up. 

Labour declined to help renters keep up with rising rents when chancellor Rachel Reeves opted not to raise local housing allowance in line with the bottom 30% of market rents.

With housing benefit frozen, people on low incomes are being locked out of the private rented sector with many facing homelessness.

Big Issue research found more than 160,000 private renters on the lowest incomes face rent shortfalls worth up to hundreds or even thousands of pounds a year as a result of the local housing allowance freeze. Tenants in Greater Manchester and the West Midlands are hardest hit.

Households have faced rising bills and food costs in recent years as part of the cost of living crisis and there is no respite when it comes to housing costs.

But there has been little action on the issues driving rising rents, namely high demand for properties and a lack of supply.

Why is UK rent so high?

The short answer to why rent is so high is because there is a shortage of affordable housing.

There is a housing crisis in the UK because not enough homes have been built by successive governments in the last few decades at a time where social housing stock has been sold off to the private sector through Right to Buy or demolished and not replaced.

An estimate from the National Housing Federation found around 340,000 new homes should be supplied in England each year with 145,000 them to be affordable. Shelter has called for 90,000 social rent homes to be built each year for the next decade.

The previous Conservative government previously targeted building 300,000 new homes in England – a 2019 manifesto commitment – but failed to hit that mark.

There have also been gloomy projections for the number of homes set to be built in the short-term future.

Labour has committed to building 1.5 million homes by 2029, including prioritising social rent homes to ease the demand on the private rented sector in the long-term.

In England, 208,600 dwellings were added to the country’s housing stock in 2024-25, including 190,600 newbuild homes. That’s down 6% on the previous year.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced £39bn would be invested in affordable housing at the recent spending review in a bid to boost the number of homes being built.

Meanwhile, areas like Cornwall where tourism has seen a surge in short-term lets through the rise of Airbnb in recent years faces even more pressures on demand.

The private rental sector has picked up the slack in recent years and has doubled in size over the last two decades.

The stiff competition has seen rents on the market increase but many landlords have kept pace by putting up rents for existing tenants.

While generally speaking there is a shortage of private rental properties across the UK, the difference between supply and demand changes from region to region.

Will rent prices go down in 2026?

The rate at which rents have been rising fell throughout 2025 but there are some signs that private rents could even decrease in 2026.

Rightmove suggested in April 2026 that private rents had stopped rising for the first time since 2017.

Zoopla estimates that rents will rise by between 2% and 3% over the rest of 2026 but has warned that, without an increase in the supply of homes to rent, low-income renters will continue to struggle.

While there is a lower supply of properties on the market, the property portal’s experts said, demand has fallen from an average of 16 enquiries per listing in 2022 down to around 5.6 in May 2026.

The result is that rents are rising at a faster rate in more affordable areas. Zoopla research found rents are increasing by an average of 5% where are rents are typically below £750 a month compared to 2.1% for the natural average.

That meant places like Carlisle (9.1%), Kilmarnock (9%) and Halifax (6.5%) were seeing the biggest increases across the country.

Richard Donnell, executive director at Zoopla, said: “While demand for renting is at its lowest level for six years, low levels of new investment in private rented housing means an ongoing scarcity of homes for rent which is keeping an upward pressure on rents.

“It’s positive that earnings continue to grow faster than rents at a national level but the experience of renters in local areas varies widely and is a challenge for lower income renters. Growing the supply of rental homes is the single most effective way to improve affordability for private renters, particularly those in traditionally more affordable areas who have the fewest choices and are facing the sharpest increases.”

Meanwhile, the National Residential Landlord Association has continually warned of a landlord exodus ahead of the introduction of the Renters’ Rights Act.

Many of the new measures in the Renters’ Rights Act came into effect in England in May 2026, finally banning no-fault evictions more than seven years after Theresa May’s government promised to axe them.

The bill introduces a number of changes to boost renters’ rights and security in the homes but has faced criticism for its lack of action on making renting more affordable and the government has rejected introducing rent controls.

Labour has promised the bill will end bidding wars between tenants as well as giving renters stronger rights to keep pets and avoid discrimination if they have children or are in receipt of benefits.

What will the Renters’ Rights Act mean for private rental prices? Time will tell.

Do you have a story to tell or opinions to share about this? Get in touch and tell us more. 

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