"Long-term unaffordable rents don’t just push people into debt and poverty, they can also change society and the economy too."
- Matt Hutchinson - SpareRoom
In Q4 2025, London’s average room rent saw a year-on year decrease of 0.9%, and is now £985 per month, according to rental index data from flatshare site SpareRoom.
London rents hit a record high of £1,015 per month two years ago, in Q4 2023. Despite marginal year-on-year average rent decreases throughout 2025, rents in the capital are still way above the ceiling of affordability for many people, after years of upward pressure on rents caused by intense post-pandemic demand.
One of the cheapest postcode areas (SE), where the average rent is £958 per month, has seen the highest year-on-year average rent increase (+1.2%). However, a few postcodes in the east, north and south-east of London still offer average rents of under £800 per month, including E12 (Manor Park), E6 (East Ham) and N9 (Lower Edmonton).
SW7 (South Kensington / Knightsbridge) has the most expensive average room rent in the capital at £1,539 per month. The cheapest postcode is E12 (Manor Park) with an average rent of £741 per month.
But competition in suburbia is increasingly fierce. With the average rent in Esher, Surrey at £740 per month, and being just 30-minutes from Waterloo by train, demand for rooms has increased by 32% between Q4 2024 and Q4 2025 – one of the highest rises in the UK – and there are now 11.2 people searching for every room available to rent there.
Post-pandemic demand caused rents to soar by 35% in the space of just two years, from £731 per month in Q3 2021 to £990 in Q3 2023. Today, demand both nationwide and in London has more or less corrected to pre-pandemic levels, yet rents have remained high.
Matt Hutchinson, director at flatshare site SpareRoom, comments, "Long-term unaffordable rents don’t just push people into debt and poverty, they can also change society and the economy too. If the capital can’t support its frontline and essential workers, or younger people starting out in their careers, the whole profile of the city changes."
"The pressure of demand on suburbia will force up rents there too, until there’s nowhere left to go. Only a meaningful decrease in average rents will improve the situation, and that hinges on a supply injection."
