Full list of 'most affordable' London boroughs to rent in - one is likely to surprise

Adam Toms
·2-min read
The river Wandle runs past houses in Wandsworth
-Credit: (Image: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)


New research has revealed which London boroughs are the cheapest to rent in. Trust for London, a funder of hundreds of organisations 'fighting for economic and social justice across the city', has crunched the numbers.

The figures they have released are based on the rent for a one bedroom dwelling as a percentage of gross pay by London borough (October 2022 to September 2023). The organisation used private rental market statistics, from October 2022 to September 2023, from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings from 2023 from the ONS.

The least affordable probably won't raise many eyebrows. Westminster has the highest median rent as a percentage of median pay - 75.4 per cent.

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The next highest is Kensington and Chelsea - 73 per cent. Next comes the City of London at 68.3 per cent. Islington registered 58 per cent, with Camden standing at 57.2 per cent.

Full set of data

Here's a full list of the data:

Borough

Median rent as a percentage of median pay (per cent)

Barking and Dagenham

36.5

Islington

58

Camden

57.2

Newham

47.1

Lewisham

53.7

Hackney

51.4

Lambeth

41.5

Tower Hamlets

54.7

Westminster

75.4

Enfield

37.3

Hillingdon

36.5

Croydon

36.5

Kingston

41.5

Southwark

49.7

Bexley

33.2

Brent

43.1

City of London

68.3

Greenwich

48.9

Kensington and Chelsea

73

Richmond

42.3

Wandsworth

52.2

Bromley

38.1

Ealing

44.1

Hammersmith and Fulham

53.1

Haringey

46.4

Merton

44.8

Redbridge

37.3

Sutton

32.3

Waltham Forest

39.8

Barnet

43.1

Harrow

39

Havering

33.2

Hounslow

44.8

Sutton may be a surprise to be amongst the cheapest areas in which to rent. Trust for London lists the borough amongst the areas with below average levels of poverty.

It is generally thought of as a relatively well off suburban area. Rightmove reports that properties in Sutton had an overall average price of £497,592 over the last year.

The property site says: "The majority of sales in Sutton during the last year were flats, selling for an average price of £299,048. Terraced properties sold for an average of £514,525, with semi-detached properties fetching £613,951.

"Overall, sold prices in Sutton over the last year were three per cent down on the previous year and four per cent up on the 2021 peak of £479,241."

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