News from 15 April 2026
Average UK room rents were £747 a month in the first quarter of 2026, broadly unchanged from a year earlier, according to SpareRoom. Its figures also showed slower growth in flatshare listings and falling lodger supply.
What the latest data shows
The headline number is stability rather than a drop. SpareRoom’s Q1 figure of £747 means average room rents were broadly flat against Q1 2025. That will be welcome news for tenants who have lived through several years of steep increases, but the market is hardly back to cheap territory. SpareRoom’s annual summary says room rents hit a record £753 in Q3 2025, and Q4 2025 still stood at £749. In other words, rents have stopped accelerating, but they remain high by recent historical standards.
The supply side is where the tone becomes more cautious. SpareRoom’s January data suggests the market is still adding listings overall, but much more slowly than before. It also reports that lodger supply is now falling, with ads from homeowners renting out rooms down 2.5% year on year in January. Lodger listings make up about a quarter of the platform’s supply.
Not all areas are moving in the same way
The national picture also hides local variation. Property Industry Eye’s report on the SpareRoom data noted stronger annual room-rent growth in places including Carlisle, Inverness, Gloucester, Durham, Worcester and Salisbury, while the South West recorded the biggest regional increase at 1.5%. That is a reminder that landlords should be careful about assuming the national average matches local letting conditions.
For some landlords, especially those in commuter towns, university markets or cities where affordability is already stretched, a stable national figure may still sit alongside strong local tenant competition. Others may find that rents are no longer moving much, but void risk and compliance costs still deserve close attention. The market can feel more selective without becoming genuinely loose.
