Demand for rooms to rent in the UK is skyrocketing, and experts say the problem will “only get worse” in the coming years.
Many Brits are aware of the bin fire that is the UK’s rental market at the moment. Firstly, prices are continuing to rise. Surging beyond overall inflation in the UK, making the cost of renting a place to live potentially take up to three-quarters of someone’s monthly income in some instances. According to the experts at Rightmove, rents are expected to rise even more over the course of 2025 too – by around 3% both inside and outside of London.
Alongside this, with owning a home genuinely out of the question for millions of Brits, the number of people renting is also skyrocketing. Also, the number of places available to rent has not kept pace, meaning demand totally outstrips the supply, and the competition for both whole properties and individual rooms can only be described as treacherous – and that puts it lightly. With 67% of landlords threatening to exit the rental sector or reduce their property portfolios, experts say the supply crisis could be about to get even worse.
Data compiled by the flatshare site, SpareRoom, and shared exclusively with the Mirror, reveals some of the areas in the UK where demand for rooms to rent is the highest. Below is a map showing the top 36 areas – along with how many people are looking at each room listing.
Across the UK as a whole, on average around 3.4 people are looking at each individual room available. So individual Brits looking at any room in the country, will only have a third of a chance of getting it.
It’s no surprise that areas on the outskirts of London and its suburbs, such as Barnet, Twickenham, Kingston-upon-Thames, and Southall, are in the top five for renters’ demand. All have cheaper-than-average rents for the capital, currently sitting at £993 per month.
Taking the top spot is Barnet in north-west London, with the average monthly rent being £847. Frighteningly, the average number of people looking at each room is 12.6 – this is more than an entire football team battling to live in each advertised room. But second on the list is Smethwick in the West Midlands – the birthplace of Dame Julie Walters – where nine times as many people are looking for rooms as there are rooms available.
According to Spareroom, the area’s excellent transport links and proximity to Birmingham just four miles east are pushing up demand for rooms to rent, as prices per room are still under the UK’s £661 average at £600 a month. On average, 9.2 people are looking at every advertised room in the area. Though not as high as Barnet’s 12.6 – nine can definitely be described as a “small crowd”.
Also close to Birmingham is Solihull, currently seventh in the UK for demand. As of 2025, there are 7.5 times as many people looking for rooms as rooms available. Demand in both of these areas has shot up over the last few years, as prices are both now higher than Birmingham, which sits at £559.
The northern town of Stockport sits in eighth place in the top 40, with an average of 6.6 people looking at every advertised room. Spareroom says the former industrial town is “extremely well connected” to Manchester Piccadilly by a 10-minute train, and close to the Peak District countryside. Stockport has developed a thriving independent business scene over the last few years and has recently seen a £1billion regeneration of the town centre. With the cost of a room in Stockport sitting at £660, Spareroom says renters could save up to £684 per year by living there instead of Manchester.
Barnsley and Huddersfield are seeing more than five times as many people searching per room available, and both have average rents of under £500 per month, well under the UK average. The highest-demand location in Wales is currently Newport with 4.2 people looking at every advertised room. The average rent in the Welsh city sits at £574 per month, and in Scotland, it’s Glasgow – with 3.4 people looking at each room – where rents are £697 per month.
Matt Hutchinson, a director at Spareroom, noted that most of the highest-demand areas in the UK for rental properties have a “winning combination” of lower-than-average rents, proximity to a large city, great transport links, and “a strong and vibrant community”.
He said: “But there’s no getting away from the fact we’re in the midst of a supply crisis in the UK. If nine people are competing for every room in Smethwick then what do the other eight do? One of the benefits of renting is supposed to be the flexibility to relocate easily, yet too many people are still living with their parents and putting life and career plans on hold, others are stuck in areas they don’t want to live in, and some are couchsurfing and technically ‘hidden homeless’
“The private rental sector is undergoing dramatic change as the Renter’s Rights Bill progresses through Parliament, and tenants – who will benefit from greater protections against eviction and unfair rental increases when it passes – will also have to navigate a market where rented accommodation may be in even shorter supply than usual.”
Below are all the locations in the UK which currently have more than five people searching per room available to rent:
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