"On average, renters are now spending 35.7% of their take-home salary on rental payments. This figure alone paints a sobering picture of the financial strain faced by tenants, but the situation becomes even more severe in certain areas"
- Chris Hutchinson - Canopy
Tenant and landlord services provider, Canopy have released their 2024 end-of-year rental affordability index which looked at data from over 60,000 individual renters, measuring the average take-home salary of employed tenants against their share of rental costs, to create a rent-to-income ratio (put simply, what percentage of their salary is spent on rent).
The average UK tenant spent over a third of their take-home salary on their rent this year (35.7%).
However, according to the numbers, 20% spent over half of their salary on rent, and 4% spent over 80% of their take-home pay. 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 most unaffordable 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. London was extremely expensive for tenants in 2024, though.
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. In fact, tenants in 2024 in every single London borough spent comfortably over a third of their salary on rent. Even the Borough with the lowest rent-to-income ratio, Newham (38.9%), was comfortably above the national average.
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.
Zooming out from London, 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 single 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. However, a high average salary meant that the Capital was only the third-most unaffordable city this year.
Belfast is the most affordable city in the country, where tenants spend less than a third (33%) of their wage on rent.
Tenants in Stoke-on-Trent and Carlisle (both 33.2%) also spent less than a third of their salary on rent in 2024.
Adur in Sussex is the most unaffordable local authority area in the country, with tenants spending almost three-quarters of their wage on average (72.6%)
Three of the authority areas with the highest unaffordability are based in London (Enfield, Barnet and Haringey).
Mid and East Antrim in Northern Ireland was the most affordable authority area in the UK in 2024, where renters spent less than a quarter of their salary (22.9%) on rent. The average tenant in Mid and East Antrim spent just less than £6k on rental payments in 2024 (£5,919.96), a small sum compared to the average tenant in London who spends almost £15k (£14,248.68).
Chris Hutchinson, CEO at Canopy, commented: “2024 has been a year in which rental affordability has remained difficult for most tenants.
“On average, renters are now spending 35.7% of their take-home salary on rental payments. This figure alone paints a sobering picture of the financial strain faced by tenants, but the situation becomes even more severe in certain areas.
“In parts of London and other high-demand regions, renters are shelling out over 50% of their income just to keep a roof over their heads.
“This disparity highlights the widening gap between rental prices and income levels, particularly in popular cities where demand vastly outstrips supply. The shortage of affordable rental properties, coupled with rising living costs, leaves many renters with little left to save or spend on other necessities. For those on lower incomes, this creates a precarious situation, with many households one unexpected expense away from a financial crisis.
“Although some regions have seen modest efforts to expand the supply of rental properties through new builds, it has done little to ease the pressure. Renters are increasingly prioritising affordability over location, driving migration to less expensive areas.
“Despite these challenges, renting remains the only viable option for many who are priced out of homeownership.”
