The UK’s rental supply crisis is now most acute in towns as more renters are priced out of cities, according to Q2 2025 demand data from flatshare site SpareRoom.
Sale, near Manchester, recorded the highest competition in the country, with 8.9 people searching for every available room.
Average monthly rents there stand at £637, compared with £689 in Manchester, offering renters a potential saving of £624 a year.
Oldbury in the West Midlands ranked second, with 8.8 people per room, while Bootle in Merseyside was the cheapest location in the UK at £456 per month and also one of the most competitive markets, with 8.6 people per room.
Only two cities appeared in the list of highest-demand areas, underlining how flatsharers are increasingly being driven out of urban centres.
Demand has more than doubled since 2019 in towns including Oldbury, Aldershot, Paisley, Sutton Coldfield and Solihull.
However, rent increases in these towns have in many cases outpaced the national average of 30%, with rises of 69% in Cannock, 65% in St Helens and 60% in Salford.
Matt Hutchinson, director of SpareRoom, said: “Across the country, rental supply in the flatshare market is still rising but that doesn’t do justice to the picture in suburbia, which is groaning under the weight of demand from renters priced out of city living.
“When renters reach their ceiling of affordability, there isn’t really a choice, they have to move somewhere cheaper.
“The worry is that demand in these areas is now so high it’s inevitable prices will rise, until average rents are similar to those in the city they originally moved out of. And then where do renters go?”
