The London Rent Review
Annual rent inflation by English region — year to July 2026
London’s year so far — annual inflation, each month of 2026
London rents rose 3.0% in the year to July 2026, up from 2.2% at the last print. That is the biggest one-month step of the year, and the fastest London has run in 2026 — it was 1.1% in January. It also ends a run: in the first two editions of this Review, London was the slowest-rising region in England. That place now belongs to the South East, at 2.9%. London still sits below England’s 3.8%, but it has stopped being the number holding the national figure down.
The boroughs kept converging. Camden has crossed back over zero: −0.5% last month, +0.5% now, after three consecutive monthly rises. Newham fell again, 4.2% to 2.8% — 2.4 points off in two prints, with July’s monthly reading turning marginally negative. Greenwich firmed to 5.6% and is the only one of our four still above 5%. Tower Hamlets, at 3.0%, is the London average. The gap between our fastest and slowest borough narrowed again, from 5.5 points to 5.1.
Last month we wrote that the two Londons were converging. They still are — but upward, not toward the middle. Camden is rising, Newham is slowing toward the average, and the average has moved up underneath both of them. That is the part a valuation has to catch. A renewal priced off June’s 2.2% is working from a market that has since moved 0.8 points. A Newham renewal still priced off the spring’s 5.2% is 2.4 points heavy. We price off the borough and the bedroom, never off the regional headline.
The spread the average hides — annual change by borough, year to July 2026
| The boroughs we work | Average | Annual | 1 bed | 2 bed | 3 bed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Greenwich | £1,980 | +5.6% | £1,551 | £1,918 | £2,225 |
| Tower Hamlets | £2,439 | +3.0% | £1,981 | £2,404 | £2,733 |
| Newham | £1,927 | +2.8% | £1,630 | £1,992 | £2,210 |
| Camden | £2,800 | +0.5% | £2,040 | £2,603 | £3,035 |
If your property is in inner, prime London, the correction is over: Camden has risen three months running and its annual rate is positive again. A renewal figure cut to match last winter’s Camden is now below the market. If it’s in an outer regeneration borough, the opposite discipline applies — Newham has come off 2.4 points in two prints and is no longer the 5% market it was in the spring, while Greenwich at 5.6% still is. Two outer east boroughs, 2.8 points apart. In both cases the bedroom count matters as much as the postcode. Bring us the address and we’ll price the property, not the region.
The ONS print
The official record, from settled tenancies. Authoritative, but roughly six weeks behind the street. Everything above comes from here.
Asking rents
Where new listings are being pitched today. Weeks ahead of the ONS, but a wish, not a deal. We read it as a direction, not a level.
Our own ledger
What our own applicants and lets are doing this week — time-to-let, offers against asking, demand per viewing. Ours alone. Read in at sign-off.
| Edition | The call | Result | Against the print |
|---|---|---|---|
| No. 02 · July 2026 release | London annual rent inflation prints in the 2.1–2.6% band at the 19 August print (July data), with the risk to the upside. | MISSED | Printed 3.0% — 0.4 points above the top of our band. We had the direction right and the range too tight: we flagged the risk as upside, and the upside is what happened. The falsifier we named did not fire — we said a Camden roll-over would prove us wrong, and Camden did the opposite, crossing back above zero. What beat us was pace, not direction. The band widens this month. |
| No. 01 · June 2026 release | London annual rent inflation holds in the 1.9–2.3% band at the 22 July print (June data). | HELD | Printed 2.2% — inside the band, at the top of it. The band held; our stated risk skew did not. We flagged the risk as being to the downside, from Camden’s fall spreading into neighbouring prime. Camden did the opposite and rebounded to −0.5%. |
Sources & method
- All figures: ONS Price Index of Private Rents (PIPR) — the successor to the Index of Private Housing Rental Prices, an official statistic since 20 May 2026.
- Release covered: 19 August 2026. Reference period: data to July 2026. Next release: 16 September 2026.
- Geography: national to local-authority level; borough figures are the ONS series for each named London borough.
- Method: ONS estimates rents by hedonic double-imputation across the private rental stock. We report its figures and add our reading; we do not compute an index of our own.
- Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
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Previous editions — each kept at its own permanent URL, unaltered after sign-off:
No. 02 · July 2026 release — data to June 2026
No. 01 · June 2026 release — data to May 2026
Cite this page
For analysts, valuers and students — cite as:
A permanent, dated edition. It will not be altered after sign-off except by a logged correction.