As demand for rental properties increase across the country due to a surge in home working, new research has revealed the average room rents for the UK's 50 biggest towns and cities.

And the data shows that one particular town in Lancashire is one of the cheapest places to rent a room with an average price of below £400 per month.

The research, conducted by Spareroom.com, shows rental demand Vs supply is up across the UK’s 50 largest towns and cities and with lockdown restrictions now removed entirely, many people are using the opportunity to re-evaluate their lifestyles and look for a new start in a different area.

To help people navigate their next big move SpareRoom has released an affordability guide for key UK towns and cities.

These range from average room rents under £400 a month in Blackpool and Huddersfield, to London, where average rents in some areas reach almost £900 a month.

Brighton has seen the biggest increase in demand vs supply (up 101 per cent year on year), followed by Poole and Edinburgh, both increasing by 81 per cent.

In fact, all of the top 50 UK towns and cities have seen an increase in demand vs supply year on year (YOY). 

The full list of average room rents for the 50 biggest towns and cities is as follows:

Under £400 per month 

  • Aberdeen £395
  • Belfast £377
  • Blackpool £397
  • Bradford £364
  • Huddersfield £365
  • Hull £390
  • Liverpool £395
  • Middlesbrough £349
  • Newcastle Upon Tyne £397
  • Stoke-on-Trent £384
  • Sunderland £350
  • Wolverhampton £390

Under £500 per month 

  • Birmingham £405
  • Bolton £408
  • Cardiff £446
  • Coventry £441
  • Derby £418
  • Dundee £441
  • Glasgow £478
  • Gloucester £426
  • Ipswich £454
  • Leeds £442
  • Leicester £442
  • Luton £465
  • Manchester £478
  • Northampton £472
  • Norwich £460
  • Nottingham £457
  • Peterborough £465
  • Plymouth £431
  • Portsmouth £485
  • Sheffield £409
  • Southampton £484
  • Swansea £414
  • Swindon £474
  • Telford £408
  • Warrington £421

Under £600 per month 

  • Bournemouth £508
  • Brighton £593
  • Bristol £548
  • Cambridge £584
  • Edinburgh £540
  • Milton Keynes £524
  • Poole £512
  • Reading £541
  • Slough £549
  • Southend-on-Sea £523
  • York £539

Under £700 per month 

  • London – East £677
  • London – North £676
  • London – South East £691
  • Oxford £602

Under £800 per month 

  • London – North West £706
  • London – South West £749
  • London – West £752

Under £900 per month Town Average rent

  • London – East Central £813
  • London – West Central £889

SpareRoom director, Matt Hutchinson, said: "The past 18 months have totally changed our attitudes to work.

"Some jobs we were told simply weren’t suitable for remote working have proved to work just fine from home.

"That means people can now choose a place to live because it suits their lifestyle, not just because the commute is convenient.

"The coming months will definitely hold some changes in terms of how and where we want to live.

"That could be great news for some towns and cities, that have historically suffered from a skills drain, as young people head for bigger cities.

"We may find, when we look back on this period, that Covid and remote working did more to rebalance the economy across the UK than any government initiative did.

"It might just be one of the positive changes to come out of what’s been a tough 18 months.”

The demand Vs supply data is based on the number of people actively looking for rooms vs the number of live room ads in a given area for the second quarter of 2021. This is then compared with the same data for the second quarter of 2020.

The data is based on room rents in shared accommodation inclusive of bills.