"In reality, there's no such thing as cheap housing in London now. If you do manage to find a room at £800 per month – and these are increasingly endangered – you'd still need to be earning a salary of £32,000 a year to afford the rent"
- Matt Hutchinson - SpareRoom
Just five London postcodes now have average room rents below £800 per month, down from 81 in 2020, according to Q1 2026 rental index data from flatshare site SpareRoom.
All five are in the E or N postcode areas. Renters hunting for the capital's most affordable rooms should focus on E6 (East Ham), E12 (Manor Park), E4 (Chingford), N18 (Upper Edmonton) and E7 (Forest Gate).
The contrast with the pre-pandemic period is stark. In Q1 2020, London's average room rent stood at £773 per month, and 81 postcodes sat below the £800 threshold, including 50 below £700.
London's average room rent now stands at £978 per month, though this represents a modest 0.5% fall on the previous year. Demand for rooms in the capital has dropped 12% year on year, while supply has increased by 4.8%, suggesting more renters are being priced out altogether rather than the market genuinely softening.
Rents hit a record high of £1,015 per month at the end of 2023. Despite marginal year-on-year falls throughout 2025 and into Q1 2026, the capital's rents remain far beyond what many people can realistically afford, following years of intense post-pandemic demand on a limited rental stock.
While the headline figures show some relief, the postcode-level picture tells a more complex story. Outliers include W8 (Holland Park), NW7 (Mill Hill), SE4 (Brockley), and SE19 (Crystal Palace), which have recorded the highest year-on-year rent rises in the capital.
This table shows how room rents have changed year on year in the eight inner London postcode areas:
"Rents in the capital have been flatlining for a while," said Matt Hutchinson, director at SpareRoom. "While this is clearly better than the years of uplifts that came before, it's hardly a dream scenario. Years of intense demand on London's limited rental stock have inflated prices and made cheap rents all too scarce. Falling demand and slightly increased supply point to more renters being priced out of inner London, which is why we're still seeing heightened demand in the suburbs and commuter belt."
"In reality, there's no such thing as cheap housing in London now. If you do manage to find a room at £800 per month – and these are increasingly endangered – you'd still need to be earning a salary of £32,000 a year to afford the rent. This is over and above what many people in the capital earn, especially those just starting their careers."
