The average room in London now costs £915 per month to rent – less than the same time last year, new data from rental site SpareRoom reveals.
London renters are paying £2 less on average than last year, with room rents having fallen by 0.2 per cent.
Inner London rooms are slightly more expensive, at £979pcm on average, with rents having risen by 0.3 per cent in the same time frame; in outer London, the average room costs £794pcm, down 0.6 per cent.
The discrepancy, says SpareRoom, is because flatshare supply dropped by five per cent after the Renters’ Rights Act came into force in May, while supply is holding steady in outer London.
But these modest drops in rent do not reflect the overall pattern. In the last five years, average London rents have gone up by 34 per cent, up from £685pcm in 2021.
And although the average may be stagnant, a handful of London postcodes have also seen their rents soar over the last year, with parts of southeast London experiencing the highest rises.
Here are the capital’s priciest —and most affordable— places to rent.
London’s most expensive postcodes
Unsurprisingly, the capital’s priciest postcodes for renters are all in west London, with the exception of the City of London. SW7, covering South Kensington and Knightsbridge, tops the table, with the average room costing £1,599pcm.
It’s followed by W1 in the West End, where rooms cost £1,471pcm, and W8 (Holland Park), at £1,449pcm.
In fact, five of the top 10 most expensive postcodes are in Kensington and Chelsea: SW7, W8, SW3 (Chelsea), SW10 (West Brompton) and SW5 (Earl’s Court).
Despite being one of the most expensive postcodes, though, rents have actually fallen by 6.4 per cent in SW10, with the average room now costing £1,282pcm - £77 more than last year.
Postcode |
Average monthly room rent |
SW7 (South Kensington, Knightsbridge) |
£1,599 |
W1 (West End) |
£1,471 |
W8 (Holland Park) |
£1,449 |
SW3 (Chelsea) |
£1,360 |
SW1 (Westminster, Victoria) |
£1,284 |
SW10 (West Brompton) |
£1,282 |
WC1 (Bloomsbury, High Holborn) |
£1,274 |
SW5 (Earl’s Court) |
£1,273 |
EC1 (Aldersgate, Finsbury, Holborn) |
£1,267 |
NW1 (Regent’s Park, St Pancras) |
£1,217 |
London’s least expensive postcodes
London’s most affordable postcodes for renters are mostly on the opposite side of London, concentrated on the outer edges of north and east London. Four of the top 10 are in Newham.
The cheapest place to rent a room in the capital, SpareRoom’s data shows, is in E12 (Manor Park), with average rents at £729pcm - £186 cheaper than the London average.
Manor Park has seen one of the biggest drops in rental prices over the last year, with rents down from £866pcm (-7.2 per cent).
E6 (East Ham) is also relatively affordable, at £734pcm, as is E7 (Forest Gate), at £778. In the latter, rents have fallen by four per cent since 2025, down from £823pcm.
Two south-east London postcodes also make the top 10: SE20 (Penge), at £796pcm, and SE25 (Norwood), at £804pcm.
Postcode |
Average monthly room rent |
E12 (Manor Park) |
£729 |
E6 (East Ham) |
£734 |
E7 (Forest Gate) |
£778 |
N18 (Upper Edmonton) |
£789 |
N9 (Lower Edmonton) |
£789 |
E4 (Chingford) |
£792 |
SE20 (Penge) |
£796 |
N21 (Winchmore Hill) |
£797 |
E13 (Plaistow) |
£800 |
SE25 (Norwood) |
£804 |
Where rents have risen most
While rents may have dropped slightly across London in the past year, parts of southeast London are bucking the trend.
In Crystal Palace (SE19) and Forest Hill (SE23), for example, rents rose by 11.1 per cent – well above both the London average of -0.2 per cent, but the average for SE postcodes, at one per cent growth.
In Crystal Palace, the average room now costs £901pcm, up by from £811 in the summer of 2025. It’s a rise of £90 per month, or £1,080 per year.
In Forest Hill, rents have increased from £822pcm to £913pcm.
SE27 (West Norwood), SE24 (Herne Hill), SE18 (Plumstead), SE28 (Thamesmead), SE22 (Dulwich) and SE17 (Walworth) are all south-east London postcodes which have seen rent rises of over six per cent in the last year.
“Crystal Palace and Forest Hill were once seen as ‘good value alternatives’ to places like Clapham or East Dulwich,” says Matt Hutchinson, SpareRoom’s director.
“Today, they’re highly desirable in their own right, with plenty of green space, the Windrush line and rail connections, bags of character, and rents below the inner London average.
“In the knowledge that sky-high housing and living costs might mean they’re sharing for years to come, flatsharers today are increasingly concerned about quality of life as well as affordability, and they’re moving wherever can offer them the best of both, pushing up rents in the process.”
Postcodes which are getting cheaper
Some areas, conversely, have experienced larger than average drops in rent. In N10 (Muswell Hill), a room now costs £884pcm, down from £998pcm at the same time last year – a fall of 11.4 per cent.
Unlike its neighbour SE27, SE25 (Norwood) has seen rents go down by 7.2 per cent, from £866pcm to £804pcm.
In E12 (Manor Park), NW5 (Kentish Town), N13 (Palmers Green) and N19 (Upper Holloway) rents have also reduced by more than five per cent.
But although rents have dropped in these postcodes, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they are affordable.
In Kentish Town, for example, a room now costs £74 less than last year. But at £1,038pcm, rents are still £61 per month more than the northwest London average.
The same is true for N5 (Highbury), where the average room is £54 cheaper than last year, but still costs £1,006pcm.
