The average UK tenant paid around £10,000 rent in 2024, with the figure as high as £15,000 in London.
That’s according to tenant and landlord services provider Canopy which claims this suggests 11% of renters spent over 60% of their take-home pay on accommodation.
The index analyses data from over 60,000 renters, measuring average take-home salary of employed tenants against their share of rental costs, to create a rent to income ratio – that is, what percentage of their salary is spent on spent on rent.
The average UK tenant spent over a third of their take-home salary on their rent last year (35.7%).However, one in five (20%) spent over half of their salary on rent, and one in 25 (4%) spent over 80% of their take-home pay.
| Percentage of Salary Spent on Rent – UK Wide | Percentage of Tenants Who Spent This Much |
| Over 50% | 20% |
| Over 60% | 11% |
| Over 70% | 7% |
| Over 80% | 4% |
Tenants in London (44.6%) and the South-East (44.1%) sent almost half of their net pay to their landlord this year.
London and the South-East emerged as the least affordable regions of the UK.
The Channel Islands were actually more expensive than London by pure rental cost – the average renter paid £15,969.84 for their rental property in 2024, yet the area boasts a high average salary of almost £40,000.
| Region Name | Avg Take-Home Pay (£) | Avg Annual Rent (£) | Avg Monthly Rent (£) | Rent To Income Ratio |
| London | £35,942.75 | £14,248.68 | £1,187.39 | 44.6% |
| South East | £26,498.46 | £10,525.20 | £877.10 | 44.1% |
| South West | £24,330.03 | £9,138.72 | £761.56 | 41.2% |
| East of England | £27,946.95 | £10,256.76 | £854.73 | 40.5% |
| Channel Islands | £39,963.83 | £15,969.84 | £1,330.82 | 39.9% |
| Wales | £21,706.09 | £7,689.36 | £640.78 | 38.4% |
| West Midlands | £24,875.19 | £8,604.12 | £717.01 | 37.8% |
| East Midlands | £24,018.90 | £8,299.68 | £691.64 | 37.4% |
| Scotland | £23,456.71 | £7,539.48 | £628.29 | 36.7% |
| North West | £24,463.31 | £8,198.40 | £683.20 | 36.6% |
| Yorkshire & Humber | £22,828.31 | £7,391.40 | £615.95 | 35.2% |
| North East | £22,444.49 | £6,911.04 | £575.92 | 33.6% |
| Northern Ireland | £25,201.24 | £7,750.80 | £645.90 | 33.0% |
| Isle of Man | £35,074.16 | £10,720.56 | £893.38 | 31.1% |
| UK as a whole | £27,709.95 | £9,905.14 | £825.42 | 35.7% |
Tenants in Enfield (53.1%), Barnet (51.9%), and Haringey (51.5%) spent over half of their take-home pay on rent across the year.
Tenants in 2024 in every single London borough spent over a third of their salary on rent.
The highest rent by cost in 2024 was in Kensington and Chelsea – tenants spent an average of £19,466.64 on their rent this year.
Cities are typically seen as more expensive than other areas, and so it proved in 2024, with the vast majority of UK cities recording a higher rent-to-income-ratio than the national average.
Every UK city in the top ten most. unaffordable of 2024 was found to be in the South of England.
Bournemouth (47.3%) was the least affordable city in the country in 2024.
Renters spent close to half of their 2024 salary (47.3%) on rent, at an average cost of £801.71 per month.
Oxford was also found to be more unaffordable than London, with tenants spending 46.1% of their take-home pay.
London was the city with the highest rents by cost (£1,187.39 per month) – working out at £14,248.68 over the year.
This article is taken from Landlord Today