ONS Average Private Rent in London: What the Figure Actually Measures
Short answer: The ONS Price Index of Private Rents put average London private rent at £2,302 in June 2026, up 2.2% on the year — the lowest annual rent inflation of the nine English regions. In England it measures achieved rents across the whole rental stock, new and existing tenancies. It is not an asking-rent index, and it is not your flat.
Landlords ask us the same question every month. The ONS says London rents rose 2.2%. Mine didn't. Why? The answer is in what the index counts.
What is the ONS average private rent for London?
For the 12 months to June 2026, published 22 July 2026, the ONS reported an average London private rent of £2,302 per month, an annual rise of 2.2%. England averaged £1,446 (+3.4%) and the UK £1,388 (+3.3%). London had the lowest annual rent inflation of all English regions; the North East had the highest, at 6.3% on an average rent of £781.
The newest month is a provisional estimate. The ONS revises the two most recent monthly UK estimates in every release, so a fresh headline can shift a little before it settles.
By bedroom count, London looked like this in June 2026:
| London property size | Average monthly rent (June 2026) |
|---|---|
| One bedroom | £1,740 |
| Two bedrooms | £2,205 |
| Three bedrooms | £2,607 |
| All property types | £2,302 |
What does the ONS actually measure — new lets or all tenancies?
This is the point everything else hangs on.
The figure comes from the Price Index of Private Rents (PIPR), which replaced the older Index of Private Housing Rental Prices in March 2024 for Great Britain, with Northern Ireland brought onto the same basis in March 2025 to complete UK coverage. On 20 May 2026 PIPR data became official statistics and are no longer classed as "in development". It is not yet an accredited official statistic — the ONS says it has engaged with the Office for Statistics Regulation on next steps towards accreditation. We report that distinction because it matters to how much weight a figure should carry.
PIPR is monthly. It reaches down to local authority level in England and Wales, which means every London borough except the City of London — the ONS does not publish an estimate there, or for the Isles of Scilly, because collection volumes are too low.
Method: the ONS uses a hedonic regression double imputation approach. In plain terms, it models what a property with a given set of characteristics should rent for, then applies that model to a fixed basket so that like is compared with like month to month.
The prices behind the model differ by country. In England and Wales they are achieved rents — the actual price a tenant pays — for a mix of new and existing tenancies. England's data comes from Valuation Office Agency lettings information; Wales's from the Welsh Government. Scotland and Northern Ireland lean on advertised new lets instead.
That phrase — a mix of new and existing tenancies — is the whole story. In the ONS's own words, PIPR aims to reflect "price changes for all private rental properties (the stock, not only newly advertised properties)". It measures the stock. Your new letting is a flow.
Why is my rent different from the ONS average?
Five honest reasons.
1. Stock, not new lets. Most tenancies in London are not re-let in any given month. Their rent is flat or moves once a year under a section 13 notice (section 13, Housing Act 1988, as amended by the Renters' Rights Act 2025). Those unchanged rents sit inside the average and pull it toward zero. A first letting at open-market price is one observation inside a very large stock of continuing tenancies.
2. The borough spread is enormous. "London" as a single number hides more than it shows. In the same month, June 2026:
| Borough | Average rent | Annual change |
|---|---|---|
| Camden | £2,791 | -0.5% |
| Brent | £2,010 | +0.60% |
| Waltham Forest | £1,765 | +0.76% |
| Tower Hamlets | £2,429 | +2.7% |
| Hackney | £2,635 | +3.07% |
| Wandsworth | £2,611 | +3.66% |
| Newham | £1,928 | +4.15% |
| Greenwich | £1,967 | +5.0% |
| Lambeth | £2,523 | +5.07% |
Camden fell while Lambeth rose more than five per cent. A landlord in either borough who read only the 2.2% headline learnt nothing about their own home.
3. Bedroom and property mix. The all-property figure moves when the composition of what is let changes, not only when prices change. Hedonic adjustment is designed to control for this — but the level you read is still an average across a mix that does not resemble your flat.
4. Passing rent versus market rent. The average blends rents agreed three years ago with rents agreed last month. See the glossary below.
5. The lag is longer than it looks. June's data appeared on 22 July — roughly three weeks after the month closed. But the deeper lag is in the sample: a collected rent stays valid for up to 14 months, and a property drops out only after 14 consecutive months without a price update. At local authority level a three-month moving average is applied to the chained indices to reduce volatility. So a borough print is a smoothed blend of rents agreed across many months, not a reading of last Tuesday.
How should a landlord read three different rent numbers?
We use a framing we call the Three Clocks. Three sources, three different delays, three different jobs.
| Clock | What it is | Delay | What it is good for |
|---|---|---|---|
| The ONS print | Achieved rents across the whole stock, borough level | Weeks to months, smoothed; newest month provisional | Confirming a trend. Settling an argument. |
| Asking rents | What landlords are advertising now, on the portals | Days | Early direction, and noisy. Note that since 1 May 2026 the advertised rent is a ceiling, not an opening bid (section 56, Renters' Rights Act 2025). |
| Our own ledger | What our homes actually let for, and how fast | Live | Deciding this week's price on this week's flat. |
As at June 2026 we manage around 117 homes across roughly 35 London postcode districts, so our ledger is live but small. The ONS is authoritative but slow. Asking rents are fast but unproven. Read all three, and never let one of them pretend to be another.
To be explicit about what we do and do not do: we report the ONS's figures and add a reading of them. We do not compute a rent index of our own. That method note sits on the London Rent Review, which we publish monthly at borough level.
What do passing rent, market rent, notional rent and pcm mean?
| Term | What it means |
|---|---|
| Passing rent | The rent actually being paid right now under the existing tenancy. It can sit well below or above market. |
| Market rent | The rent the property would achieve if let today, on the open market, to a new tenant. |
| Notional rent | A rent used inside a calculation rather than one actually collected — an assumed figure where no rent changes hands. If you are a residential landlord, this is almost never the number you want. The number you want is market rent. |
| pcm | Per calendar month. The standard UK advertising convention for residential rent. |
| pppw | Per person per week. Used mainly in student and shared-house advertising. To convert: pppw × 52 ÷ 12 × number of tenants = pcm. |
More definitions sit in our glossary.
What does this mean for pricing your property?
For this month's borough-by-borough figures, by bedroom count, beside what our own book lets for in your postcode district, use the instant Rent Check. It is market context in one step; the visit is the valuation.
Use the ONS to check whether your borough is rising or falling. Do not use it to set your asking rent. A 2.2% London headline will not tell you whether your two-bedroom flat lets at £2,150 or £2,395 — and the gap between those two numbers, over a year, is £2,940.
We won't quote you a rent we cannot show our working for. Where the evidence in a postcode is too thin to be honest about — three lettings in six months is not a market — we say so, rather than round a number up to win the instruction.
If you want the borough-level read each month, that is the London Rent Review. If you want a figure for your specific property, with the comparable lettings written underneath it, book a free rental appraisal — we will come to the property, and you will get the evidence, not just the number. Our note on how much rent you can get for a London flat sets out how we build that figure, and our Renters' Rights Act 2025 guide covers what the new rules changed about pricing and rent reviews.
Sources
- Office for National Statistics, Private rent and house prices, UK: July 2026 (released 22 July 2026; rent reference period June 2026) — headline, regional, borough and bedroom figures. https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/inflationandpriceindices/bulletins/privaterentandhousepricesuk/july2026
- Office for National Statistics, Private rent and house prices, UK: June 2026 (released 17 June 2026; rent reference period May 2026) — used to evidence the publication lag. https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/inflationandpriceindices/bulletins/privaterentandhousepricesuk/june2026
- Office for National Statistics, Private rent and house prices, UK: May 2026 — the release in which PIPR data became official statistics on 20 May 2026. https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/inflationandpriceindices/bulletins/privaterentandhousepricesuk/may2026
- Office for National Statistics, Price Index of Private Rents detailed methodology — hedonic regression double imputation; achieved rents in England and Wales; source by country; 14-month price validity; three-month moving average applied to chained local authority indices. https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/inflationandpriceindices/methodologies/priceindexofprivaterentsdetailedmethodology
- Office for National Statistics, Price Index of Private Rents QMI — coverage and geography, replacement of IPHRP, non-publication of City of London and Isles of Scilly estimates, revisions policy, accreditation status. https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/housing/methodologies/priceindexofprivaterentsqmi
- Office for National Statistics, Redevelopment of private rental prices statistics, impact analysis, UK — PIPR replacing IPHRP in March 2024 for Great Britain and March 2025 for Northern Ireland. https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/housing/articles/redevelopmentofprivaterentalpricesstatisticsimpactanalysisuk/latest
- Office for National Statistics, Price Index of Private Rents, UK: monthly price statistics — borough and bedroom-level price levels, published alongside the 22 July 2026 bulletin. https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/inflationandpriceindices/datasets/priceindexofprivaterentsukmonthlypricestatistics
- Renters' Rights Act 2025 (c. 26), section 56 (requirement to state rent and to avoid rental bidding); in force 1 May 2026 by S.I. 2026/421, regulation 3(c). https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2025/26/section/56
- Housing Act 1988, section 13 (increases of rent under assured tenancies other than relevant low-cost tenancies), as amended by the Renters' Rights Act 2025 from 1 May 2026. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/50/section/13
ONS figures contain public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.