No one likes paying rent. Some might even compare paying rent to helping out your landlord on their mortgage or growing property portfolio. It’s dead money, but we all need a roof over our heads.
In a quest to identify the best and worst value cities to live and work in, we recently analysed our Adzuna data on average salaries across one million vacancies in Nov 2023, comparing them to the average rental prices per city according to Zoopla.
We found that Middlesbrough, Sunderland, and Bradford are the UK’s best cities to live for renters.
How much rent can you afford?
There are no set rules on how you should spend your money. Your decision should always align with your priorities but here’s what financial experts say. The ONS suggests that rent should make up 30% or less of your paycheque, while a popular 50/30/20 budget rule recommends spending up to 50% of your paycheque on necessary expenses including rent, bills, food and transport.
Top 10 best value towns
Middlesbrough is not only famous for its football fanbase, it’s also the best-value city in the UK for tenants, with rental prices only accounting for one-fifth (20.7%) of their pay slips on average. With higher-than-average advertised salaries and relatively low rent prices, Middlesbrough residents most likely have cash to spare. Their take-home pay after rent is the highest in the country, hitting a whopping £1,738! A bonus point is that Middlesbrough is the only city where annual salary growth (+13.4%) has outpaced annual rent hikes (+7.8%) over the past year.
In second place is Sunderland, where workers spend less than a quarter (23.1%) of their earnings on rent, leaving a sweet take-home pay of £1,479. Bradford (23.6%), Belfast (26.7%) and Preston (27.1%) round off the best 5 value cities.
Another standout is Leeds. Average rent in the Yorkshire city might not be the cheapest, at £926 per month, yet workers in Leeds can pocket above the national average salary, with advertised pay packets averaging at £38,397 a year and a host of large organisations including Channel 4 recently relocating to the city. Leeds residents’ average take-home pay after rent is therefore the third-highest in the country at an impressive £1,634. In fact, we recently discovered that outside of London, the LS postcode is the highest paid in Great Britain!
Here are 10 cities in the UK where renters will spend the lowest percentage of their salary on rent:
| City | Average annual salary, Nov 2023 | Average rent PCM, Nov 2023 | Rent as a % of monthly salary | Monthly take home salary after paying rent |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Middlesbrough | £35,147 | £605 | 20.66% | £1,738 |
| Sunderland | £31,163 | £599 | 23.07% | £1,479 |
| Bradford | £35,095 | £690 | 23.59% | £1,650 |
| Belfast | £34,542 | £766 | 26.61% | £1,537 |
| Preston | £33,809 | £763 | 27.08% | £1,491 |
| Sheffield | £35,049 | £795 | 27.22% | £1,542 |
| Warrington | £36,313 | £827 | 27.33% | £1,594 |
| Derby | £33,981 | £788 | 27.83% | £1,477 |
| Liverpool | £34,154 | £799 | 28.07% | £1,478 |
| Rochdale | £33,385 | £791 | 28.43% | £1,435 |
Worst value cities
When it comes to the worst value, it may come as no surprise that London takes the top spot, where more than half (53%) of renters’ salary will go on rent. What might be shocking is that Londoners might have the highest average gross pay (£42,928) but their take-home salary after rent is the lowest among all. Since rent takes up 57.4% of their income, they are left with a mere £810 after rent.
Don’t forget to factor in other essential living costs, such as electricity, gas, water, groceries, and transportation. As glamorous as the capital seems – with all the new theatre shows and new restaurants cropping up every weekend, Londoners might be struggling to afford them.
London’s big city blues are contagious, spreading to cities an hour away from the capital. Outside of London, Oxford is the biggest rent trap. Rental prices in the student city average £1,614, accounting for 49.1% of workers’ average monthly salaries of 39,454, leaving workers with £1,016 in their pockets after rent.
Next up, Crawley where an average worker spends most on rent. Unlike Oxford, advertised salaries in Crawley average at just £34,709, while average rental prices still stand firm at £1,371, resulting in an average worker with just £943 of take-home pay, the lowest outside of London.
Cambridge, another city known for its prestigious university, isn’t far behind. Its rental price swallows 47.2% of residents’ average salaries of £39,432. This leaves the average worker with a mere £1,077 after rent.
| City | Average annual salary, Nov 2023 | Average rent PCM, Nov 2023 | Rent as a % of monthly salary | Monthly take home salary after paying rent |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| London | £42,928 | £2,052 | 57.36% | £810 |
| Oxford | £39,454 | £1,614 | 49.09% | £1,016 |
| Crawley | £34,709 | £1,371 | 47.40% | £943 |
| Cambridge | £39,432 | £1,552 | 47.23% | £1,077 |
| Reading | £40,305 | £1,340 | 39.90% | £1,347 |
| Milton Keynes | £36,692 | £1,209 | 39.54% | £1,237 |
| Cardiff | £35,426 | £1,073 | 36.35% | £1,289 |
| Norwich | £33,610 | £1,013 | 36.17% | £1,228 |
| Luton | £37,912 | £1,124 | 35.58% | £1,403 |
| Portsmouth | £39,026 | £1,110 | 34.13% | £1,492 |
It’s a perpetual debate on whether it’s better to earn more money but with a higher risk of spending more or earn less but with smaller expenses. In either case, there’s a perfect place in the UK that aligns with your preferred lifestyle.
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