The salary you need to rent in UK cities
- Average rent by city from official ONS data
- The gross salary needed on the 30% rule
- Enter your own rent to check any city
Gross salary you'd need
£75,936
To keep £1,365 rent at 30% of your take-home.
| Monthly rent | £1,365 |
| Take-home you'd need each month | £4,550 |
| Gross salary needed | £75,936 |
The 30% rule keeps rent at no more than 30% of your take-home. It's an ideal: ONS found the typical English renter spends about 36%. Sharing lowers the rent you personally pay. Source: ONS
These are the ONS average monthly rents for mid-2026, alongside the gross salary you'd need to keep rent at 30% of your take-home if you rented the average home on your own. Click a city to load its rent into the calculator above. The UK average rent hit £1,393 a month in the year to July 2026.
| City | Avg rent/mo | Salary needed (30%) |
|---|---|---|
| Manchester | £1,365 | £75,936 |
| Birmingham | £1,093 | £57,177 |
| Nottingham | £1,011 | £51,522 |
| Sheffield | £925 | £46,501 |
| Liverpool | £909 | £45,612 |
| UK average | £1,393 | £77,867 |
Rent figures: ONS local averages, Manchester, Birmingham, Liverpool and Nottingham July 2026; Sheffield June 2026. UK average to July 2026. Salary needed is our calculation on 2026/27 tax rates.
Renting the average home on your own, on a strict 30% rule, needs a big salary. That's the honest picture. Manchester's £1,365 average rent works out at needing about £76,000 gross, which most single renters don't earn. That's exactly why so many people share, why the typical English renter actually spends around 36% of income on rent, and why the 30% rule is more of a target than a reality. Drop the share to 40% and the salary needed falls sharply.
The rents above are whole-property averages. Split a two-bed between two people and your personal rent roughly halves, which brings the salary needed down to a normal range. In Sheffield or Liverpool, a room in a shared flat is affordable on a starting salary. In Manchester, sharing is close to essential for most renters under 30. Enter your actual share of the rent in the calculator to see what you'd need.
ONS data to mid-2026 shows rents rose fastest in the North East and slowest in London. Liverpool rents climbed 5.7% over the year, well above the UK's 3.7%. So the northern cities that look cheap today are closing the gap. If you're planning a move, factor in that the cheaper cities are where rents are rising quickest. To see your take-home on a given salary, use the main salary calculator, and the salary to buy a house page covers buying rather than renting.