Rents are climbing quickest in the North East and North West of England, both at 5.8% a year — but faster growth is not the same as higher rents, which remain steepest in London.

The North East and North West of England are seeing the fastest annual rent increases in the country, with private rents in both regions rising 5.8% in the year to August 2026. That is well above the UK-wide average of 3.8%, according to figures published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) on 16 September, and it places the north of England at the top of the table for the pace of rent growth.

At the other end of the scale, the South East of England recorded the slowest growth among English regions at 3.0%. London, often assumed to be the epicentre of rental pressure, sat in the middle of the pack for growth at 3.5%. The pattern is a useful corrective to the idea that rent pressures are concentrated in the capital.

Growth rates versus rent levels

The crucial distinction in these figures is between how fast rents are rising and how high they already are. A region can have the fastest growth rate while still being among the cheapest places to rent, and it can have slow growth while remaining extremely expensive. Confusing the two leads to a distorted picture of where renting is hardest.

London illustrates the point. Its 3.5% annual growth is unremarkable, yet the average rent in the Capital was £2,332 a month in August — far above the English average of £1,459 and the UK average of £1,400. So while London rents are rising at a middling pace, the level remains by some distance the highest of any English region. Fast growth in the North East and North West, by contrast, is being applied to a lower starting base.

Why the northern regions stand out

The 5.8% figure for the North East and North West marks these regions as the current hotspots for rent inflation. Because their average rents have historically been lower than in the south, a given percentage increase adds fewer pounds to a monthly bill than the same percentage would in London or the South East. Nonetheless, for tenants in those regions the acceleration is real and adds to the cost of living.

The ONS data record the rates of increase but do not set out the specific local reasons behind them, and it would be speculative to assign a single cause. What the figures establish is the ranking: the fastest rent growth in England is currently found in the North East and North West, not in the capital.

A national average that hides variation

The UK-wide figure of 3.8% is an average that conceals a spread running from 3.0% in the South East to 5.8% in the two northern regions. Averages are useful for tracking the overall direction, but they can mislead if taken as a description of any particular place. A tenant's actual experience depends heavily on their region, their local area within it, and the size and type of property they rent.

The variation extends to the other nations of the UK too. Wales saw rents rise 4.3% over the year, faster than England's 4.0%, while Scotland's growth was much softer at 1.1% and Northern Ireland's was 1.6% on data to June. England's northern regions therefore stand out not only within England but across the UK as a whole.

What it means for renters

For renters in the North East and North West, the message is that their rents are rising faster than almost anywhere else in the country, even if the absolute amounts remain lower than in the south. For those in London and the South East, growth is slower, but Londoners in particular continue to pay the highest rents by a wide margin. Both groups face pressure, but of different kinds: one from the pace of increase, the other from the sheer level of cost.

The distinction matters for anyone deciding where to live or trying to make sense of headlines about the rental market. A claim that rents are rising fastest in a particular region says nothing about whether that region is cheap or expensive to rent in; it describes only the speed of change. Reading the two dimensions together — level and growth — gives a far more accurate sense of where the strain is greatest.

The provisional caveat

As with the headline UK figures, the ONS notes that estimates for the most recent two months are provisional and subject to revision as further data are collected. The regional rankings could shift slightly as those figures are finalised, so the current standings are best treated as an up-to-date but not yet settled read.

Even allowing for that, the core findings are clear. Rent growth is fastest in the North East and North West at 5.8%, slowest in the South East at 3.0%, and London remains the most expensive place to rent despite only middling growth. The figures describe a market in which the fastest increases and the highest costs are found in different parts of the country.

Reading a regional table carefully

Regional rent figures reward careful reading. A table ranking regions by growth rate answers only one question — where rents are rising fastest — and says nothing about affordability, which depends on the level of rent relative to local incomes. A region can top the growth table while remaining the cheapest place to rent, and a slow-growing region can be expensive. Both dimensions have to be held in view at once.

There is also a compositional point. The average rent in a region reflects the mix of properties let there, so a shift towards larger or higher-quality homes being rented can nudge the average up even if the rent on any given property is unchanged. The ONS series is designed to track like-for-like price changes as far as possible, but the headline averages still reflect the stock of homes actually rented in each place. Regions are themselves large and internally varied: within the North East or the North West, individual towns and cities diverge from the regional average, just as boroughs within London differ enormously. The closer a renter looks to their own locality, the more the national and regional averages give way to local realities. Averages guide; the local market decides.