Back from the Spring Festival, Lansa Jun takes a look at the UK and London rental data report in March this year.
How much does it cost to rent a flat in the UK and London today? Speak with the data.
Let's look at the most popular London first. In the March rent report released by Homelet, the UK property agency, three key data points are summarised and outlined:
1. in March 2025, the average monthly rent in London was £2,059, which is about 20,000 RMB/month.
2. compared to the same period last year (March 2024), average rents in London have fallen by 2.0%.
3. of all London boroughs, the area with the highest annual increase in rents is Bromley, with a 16.6 per cent increase.
Looking at London over the last five years, the area with the largest growth rate is Bromley, South East London. here there has been a five-year increase of 50.6%, while other areas of the site have become significantly darker by several degrees, suggesting that rents have risen by several steps in five years.
According to Homelet, rents in London rose by a modest 1.6 per cent in March this year compared to February this year, and with a 2 per cent fall compared to the same period last year, despite being in the off-season for renting, it seems that the start of 2025 has not been to everyone's satisfaction.
Based on the UK-wide illustration above, it can be seen that the region with the fastest annual rental growth rate is Northern Ireland, up 7.3% compared to the same period last year, with an average monthly rent of £910 , while compared to February this year, it is up 1.4%.
However, it is worth mentioning that the London area has become the title of ‘annual rent decline king’. Looking at the rental trends over the past year (March 2024 - March 2025) in various regions of the UK. In comparison to the rest of the UK, the London region is trending slightly upwards after the downward trend eased at the start of the year, but remains one of the worst rental performers in the UK in recent times.
Looking at the figures for the UK as a whole, the average rent in the UK was £1,288 per month in the year to March 2025, up 1.2 per cent compared to the same period last year, and up 1.0 per cent compared to the previous month.
It's worth noting, however, that although London has not performed well recently, it is a ‘strong house’. Excluding London, the average rent in the UK fell to £1107 per month, still showing that rents in London are significantly higher than the average rent in the UK.
What are the rents in each area of London? We've highlighted a few key areas to share with you!
*Increases are compared to the average monthly rent in March 2024, data from Homelet
At the top of the table remains the famous West London area of Westminster, with an average monthly rent: £3,188. The annual increase is -8.8 per cent.
Wealthy West London area, home to a number of luxury properties - Hammersmith, Fulham, Kensington and Chelsea; average monthly rent: £2,587. Annual increase of -4 per cent.
Central London - Camden, City of London; average monthly rent: £2,117. Annual increase of -6.2 per cent.
East London, seen as a new force to be reckoned with, with Canary Wharf sitting in Tower Hamlets; average monthly rent: £1,984. Increase of -6.2 per cent.
Bexley and Greenwich, the Royal Borough of South East London; average monthly rent: £1,710. An increase of -3.2 per cent.
A closer look will show that basically all of the well-known London areas we have listed have declined to varying degrees, the worst being Lambeth, on the south bank of the Thames, with a 9.2 per cent drop. Â
However, ‘suburban’ areas that I hadn't noticed before are seeing an uptick. For example, the key school district of Barnet is up 9.3 per cent, West London's ‘Queen of the Suburbs’ Ealing is up 5.2 per cent, and the northern commuter town of Brent is up 4.8 per cent. These areas are not that far away, they are just not as central, but they are all accessible to the city centre via a short commute.
Detailed data can be found in the chart below
As you can see below, the top five areas in London in terms of annual rental growth are:
Bromley
Croydon
Merton (Merton, Kingston upon Thames and Sutton)
Enfield
Barnet (Barnet)
Figures were also published in the report showing that tenants in the UK are paying an average of 32.6 per cent of their income towards rent, a decrease of 0.6 per cent compared to the same period last year, as a result of rising house rents.
While rents in London have continued to fall, tenants in London are also paying an average of 38.8 per cent of their income towards rent, although this is down 0.6 per cent compared to the same period last year.
All in all, the third month of 2025 saw a ‘turnaround’ in the UK's rental figures, with two consecutive months of decline. However, throughout the first three months of the year, the UK as a whole was up compared to the same period last year, and the one area of the UK that is dragging its feet is the one we are most familiar with and most often refer to - London.
London rents have been showing a very interesting phenomenon, that is, the more you know the place the more decline, such as Westminster with Big Ben and the new financial city of Canary Wharf, are ranked in the top five decline in London.
But conversely some of London's suburbs have had good rises, such as Ealing in West London, Brent with Wembley, London's education head heavyweight Barnet and Harrow in the North West.
Also, the fact that houses in urban areas are inherently expensive and houses in the suburbs are inherently cheap means that the rent-to-sale ratios in these cores are declining, while the rent-to-sale ratios in the suburbs are still going up.
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