Monthly rents are now unaffordable in every region of the UK except for the North East, according to property analytics company TwentyCi.

An analysis – which was published as part of TwentyCi’s latest Property and Homemover Report – examines the latest full-time employees’ average incomes from the government by region, and compares this with median prices paid for rent in Q3 2024.  

The government defines a rental property as affordable if the median rent is 30% or less of the median income of private renting households. TwentyCi found tenants are now spending more than this in every region of the UK except the North East.    

Unsurprisingly, London has the highest percentage of income spent on rent, where the average tenant in the capital pays more than 57% of their monthly income (£3,698) on an average monthly rent of £2,119 with the South East, the South West and the East of England all commanding more than 40% of average salaries in rental costs. 

Colin Bradshaw, chief executive of TwentyCi, says: “The ongoing shortage of rental properties in comparison with the surge in demand continues to drive rents upwards.

“Available properties to rent are at their lowest since TwentyCi has been recording data in the last 15 years, falling to 259,000 in September 2024 for the whole of the UK, compared with 332,000 in September 2019 — a reduction of more than 22%.”  

The shortage of rental properties has been exacerbated by the continued departure of many landlords from the market due to tax and regulatory changes.   

In Q3 2024, 11.3% of all new properties for sale were former private rental properties within the last 3 years. This has gone up considerably since the prior year, where only 6.8% of new for-sale properties were former rentals in the prior 3 years.  

Bradshaw adds: “Nowhere in the UK has this change been more evident than in Inner London, where in Q3 2024, 47.2% of all new for-sale properties were also rented in the three years prior. It appears landlords have had enough and are selling up.”