Edinburgh ranked as the least affordable major UK city for renters
Key Points
- SpareRoom has ranked the most unaffordable cities for renters in the UK, and Edinburgh easily takes the top spot.
- The average annual rent in Edinburgh outpaces the average budget by around £1,028, placing it far ahead of second-place York and third-place Derby in terms of unaffordability.
- Data shows that almost a third of renters had to move in the past year due to their rent being unaffordable.
- Just 15.3% of renters spend less than 30% of their pay on rent excluding bills, with 37.8% spending more than half of their pay on rent.
Edinburgh has been ranked as the least affordable major city for renters by a significant margin.
This is according to new data released by flatshare website SpareRoom, which analysed affordability in the 35 cities with the highest flatshare supply in the second quarter of 2026.
The platform looked at the average rents for a room in a flatshare in these cities and compared them to the average budgets of flatsharers to determine which are the most and least affordable.
Edinburgh was found to be the most unaffordable city for flatsharers by a significant margin. The average flatsharer in Edinburgh would have to find an extra £1,028 each year above their budget to afford to rent a room in the capital.
Asking rents outpace budgets by £611 per year in York, which ranks second, and by £607 in Derby, which ranks third.
While it is generally recommended that one spends no more than 30% of their income on housing costs, the data shows that this is no longer feasible for a majority of renters in the UK.
According to SpareRoom, just 15.3% of renters are spending less than 30% of their pay on rent excluding bills, and 37.8% are spending more than 50%.
In the past year, just under a third of UK renters were forced to move due to their rent no longer being affordable.
10 most unaffordable cities for UK renters
The table below shows the ten most unaffordable cities for UK renters, according to data from SpareRoom:
| UK cities | Average monthly flatsharer budget Q2 2026 | Average monthly room rent Q2 2026 | Monthly difference budget vs rent | Annual difference budget vs rent | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Edinburgh | £748 | £834 | £86 | £1,028 |
| 2 | York | £693 | £744 | £51 | £611 |
| 3 | Derby | £530 | £581 | £51 | £607 |
| 4 | Belfast | £562 | £600 | £38 | £456 |
| 5 | Glasgow | £640 | £676 | £36 | £429 |
| 6 | Cardiff | £612 | £647 | £35 | £421 |
| 7 | Birmingham | £583 | £612 | £29 | £346 |
| 8 | Coventry | £539 | £565 | £26 | £307 |
| 9 | Leicester | £536 | £561 | £25 | £306 |
| 10 | Portsmouth | £621 | £646 | £25 | £304 |
“Edinburgh’s room rental market suffers from the festival effect: prices spike cyclically when demand is heightened in the lead up to and over the summer,” said SpareRoom director Matt Hutchinson.
“But it’s also the most expensive city to rent in outside of London, and our data shows many renters just aren’t prepared for, or able to meet, the steep prices in Scotland’s capital.”
“Sizeable affordability gaps in York and Derby put paid to any expectation that rents will be more affordable in the north of the UK. Budgets are, of course, relative to earnings and wages are clearly not matching up with rising living costs.”
“This is a problem across the whole of the UK. For more than three years UK room rents have outstripped budgets, and nothing is being done to protect rental supply and improve affordability.”
