There are plenty of people who (rightly) complain about rent prices in Manchester, and now, new Office for National Statistics (ONS) data has revealed that those people are pretty spot on, with Manchester being named the second least affordable place to rent in England and Wales. The ONS has detailed how much renters all over the country spend on rent as a percentage of their income, and Manchester seems to have skyrocketed.
Manchester renters spent almost half their income (45.6%) on their rent, that’s up from 37.1% in 2019/20. The average monthly private rent in Manchester was £1,257 in September 2024, which was an increase from £1,126 in September 2023, a 11.7% rise, therefore gaining the status as one of the least affordable places to rent.
Across the North West, the average monthly rent was £861, up from £788 a year earlier – so clearly Manchester is hiking up this average pretty substantially. Across Great Britain, the average rent price in September 2024 was £1,295, which was up from £1,194 in September 2023, meaning Manchester’s average rent is just £38 below the nationwide median.
The London borough of Kensington and Chelsea is the only place more unaffordable in these terms than Manchester, with a ratio of 52.2%. Back up north, within Greater Manchester, Trafford also makes an appearance as somewhere notably less affordable, coming in tenth at 40.1% of household income, equating to £1,270 per month – a 13.4% rise from last year. Who’d have thunk it?
The least affordable places to rent in England and Wales (percentage of average household income spent on rent)
- Kensington and Chelsea: 52.2%
- Manchester: 45.6%
- Westminster: 45.3%
- Brighton and Hove: 44.7%
- Hackney: 44.2%
- Camden: 42.2%
- Bristol, City of: 41.2%
- Haringey: 41.1%
- Hammersmith and Fulham: 41%
- Trafford: 40.1%
- Newham: 39.5%
- Southwark: 39.2%
- Oxford: 38.9%
- Bath and North East Somerset: 38.7%
- Newcastle upon Tyne: 38.7%
- Islington: 38.7%
- Brent: 38.4%
- Tower Hamlets: 38.4%
- Sevenoaks: 38.2%
- Guildford: 37.8%
All of these figures are based on the view that 30% or less of your income being spent on rent makes it affordable. The ONS itself points out that there is no widely accepted standard for this number.