£100 a month won’t rent you a shed in London! [DATA]

Bad news for London renters, who find themselves at the bottom of yet another quality of life table!

Using our data as UK’s largest letting agent, we revealed how much floor area £100pcm can rent you across England & Wales.

Looking at urban and rural locations, we’ve used data from tens of thousands of properties to calculate which areas of the UK offer renters the most living space.

UK Rental Data on Average Floor Area per £100 Rent

One Bed Properties
City	Average Floor Area (m)	Average Rental Amount (£ per calendar month)	Floor Area per £100
Lincolnshire (Rural)	94.50	487.50	19.38
Shropshire & Mid Wales (Rural)	76.95	442.42	17.39
Bradford	52.69	384.00	13.72
Northumberland (Rural)	46.92	344.17	13.63
Sunderland	56.88	428.05	13.29
All Rural	62.05	467.58	13.27
Devon (Rural)	60.01	497.50	12.06
Liverpool	53.04	447.11	11.86
Sheffield	51.80	485.18	10.68
Leicester	51.18	488.18	10.48
Leeds	55.68	538.18	10.35
Newcastle	51.63	509.64	10.13
Nottingham	48.57	498.67	9.74
Norfolk (Rural)	46.53	502.22	9.26
Birmingham	49.39	542.18	9.11
Manchester	47.57	530.54	8.97
Cardiff	49.48	625.00	7.92
Oxford	72.93	939.39	7.76
Bristol	58.68	802.19	7.31
Southampton	47.39	651.40	7.28
Portsmouth	45.41	629.39	7.21
London	50.56	1320.81	3.83
Central London	50.48	1389.60	3.63

–

Two Bed Properties
City	Average Floor Area (m)	Average Rental Amount (£ per Calendar Month)	Floor Area per £100
Northumberland (Rural)	68.39	436.25	15.68
Shropshire & Mid Wales (Rural)	102.09	652.18	15.65
Bradford	66.20	446.47	14.83
Lincolnshire (Rural)	29.29	199.91	14.65
Sunderland	67.96	472.77	14.38
Liverpool	66.31	519.33	12.77
All Rural	66.44	537.44	12.36
Newcastle	66.02	542.50	12.17
Norfolk (Rural)	72.84	628.03	11.60
Sheffield	63.34	551.84	11.48
Leicester	65.16	596.93	10.92
Nottingham	65.96	605.55	10.89
Devon (Rural)	68.01	646.18	10.52
Manchester	68.09	649.12	10.49
Leeds	64.78	640.99	10.11
Birmingham	68.59	697.12	9.84
Cardiff	62.84	729.24	8.62
Portsmouth	66.87	808.63	8.27
Southampton	60.47	819.29	7.38
Bristol	68.40	979.36	6.98
Oxford	63.07	1254.13	5.03
London	65.70	1590.68	4.13
Central London	66.14	1691.34	3.91

–

All Properties in Sample
City	Average Floor Area (m)	Average Rental Amount (£ per Calendar Month)	Floor Area per £100
Northumberland (Rural)	78.09	484.42	16.12
Shropshire & Mid Wales (Rural)	96.19	611.78	15.72
Bradford	75.82	483.33	15.69
Lincolnshire (Rural)	89.37	576.22	15.51
Newcastle	91.28	601.89	15.16
Sunderland	78.54	525.35	14.95
All Rural	86.18	653.47	13.19
Liverpool	78.34	624.71	12.54
Norfolk (Rural)	91.94	748.42	12.28
Devon (Rural)	83.34	719.22	11.59
Leicester	80.30	709.73	11.31
Sheffield	75.06	676.35	11.10
Leeds	72.87	687.07	10.61
Nottingham	73.19	690.71	10.60
Birmingham	71.25	695.73	10.24
Manchester	74.23	728.32	10.19
Cardiff	73.97	796.66	9.28
Portsmouth	75.31	941.11	8.00
Southampton	72.97	954.08	7.65
Bristol	72.29	1020.39	7.08
Oxford	77.32	1407.77	5.49
London	68.50	1659.81	4.13
Central London	67.51	1752.56	3.85

–

Key Facts from the Data

• Central London foots the list at 3.91m per £100pcm
• Rural Northumberland is top with 15.68m per £100pcm
• That means renters in Northumberland can rent a property four times larger than their counterparts in the capital for the same price
• Rural areas tend to score better than urban areas
• Northern cities tend to score better than southern cities
• Outside of London, Oxford (5.03m²/£100pcm) and Bristol (6.98m²/£100pcm) are the worst places in the UK
• Southampton is surprisingly low-scoring: 7.38m²/£100pcm
• The average London  one bed property (excluding studios) is just 51m²
• By contract, in Rural Shropshire & Mid Wales, the average one bed is 77m²
• The average three bed in Newcastle is a whopping 135m²
• The average two bed in Rural Lincolnshire is just £200pcm – compared to a huge £1,691pcm in London
• Renting a property with more bedrooms doesn’t actually give you much better value for money

OpenRent Comment on the Results

The key message from the data is that despite cities like Oxford, Bristol and London being hugely expensive in terms of monthly rents, the properties afforded by those high rents are by no means luxury.

Having enough room in our homes is very important to our wellbeing, but renters in the south of England are paying a huge premium.

Unsurprisingly, this is most acute in London, where one-bed properties cost an astonishing £100pcm per 3.9 square meters; that’s the same area as a double mattress. The same amount spent on rent in Northumberland would give the renter 16 square meters.

The result is that many in London are compromising on location or who they live with, just to make ends meet. Young couples are pressured to move in together sooner to make rent cheaper. Couples who would previously have lived alone are now forced into flat shares.

Young families who can’t afford to buy are in a tough position, since to find the space they need for their growing families, they are forced to move cities. An exodus of young families to the peripheries of our urban areas will have big effects on what life is like in the UK’s cities.

Simply looking for smaller properties isn’t a solution for renters in the South, either; those properties simply don’t exist. The average two-bed in low-scoring Bristol is 68m² – the same size as high-scoring Sunderland. The results we see are driven by high rents, not small properties.

This is just one of a long list of quality of living metrics where southern England scores badly. Data we recently published shows that London renters are more likely than renters in any other city to share a bathroom.

---