Best Cities for single renters
Whether you’re looking for love or happily single, finding a place to live on your own can be expensive if you’re going solo. With our new research, discover which cities are the most- and least- affordable for single renters.
Aberdeen
Aberdeenshire
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Avg Monthly Rent£617
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Avg Salary (After Tax)£27,440
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Weekly Groceries£37
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Utilities£106
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Money left over:£1,526
Glasgow
Glasgow City
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Avg Monthly Rent£636
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Avg Salary (After Tax)£23,255
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Weekly Groceries£33
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Utilities£114
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Money left over:£1,154
Sunderland
Tyne and Wear
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Avg Monthly Rent£486
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Avg Salary (After Tax)£20,535
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Weekly Groceries£32
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Utilities£131
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Money left over:£1,061
Most affordable
Scotland holds two of the top three spots for most affordable cities with Aberdeen having the lowest cost of living and Glasgow being second. The North/South divide in affordability is even more evident with Sunderland coming up third. Single renters are left with more than £1,000 in all three places once utilities, rent and groceries are taken out of their salary.
Brighton
East Sussex
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Avg Monthly Rent£1,461
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Avg Salary (After Tax)£22,575
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Weekly Groceries£38
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Utilities£232
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Money left over:£149
Oxford
Oxfordshire
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Avg Monthly Rent£1,442
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Avg Salary (After Tax)£24,615
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Weekly Groceries£37
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Utilities£121
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Money left over:£449
Poole
Dorset
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Avg Monthly Rent£1,251
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Avg Salary (After Tax)£22,575
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Weekly Groceries£25
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Utilities£133
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Money left over:£471
Most expensive
High rental prices in Brighton mean it takes the top spot as most expensive in the UK for people planning on living alone. In fact they’re only left with £149 of their monthly salary once utilities, groceries and rent are taken out, which is less than 10% of what their counterparts are left with in Aberdeen. Things aren’t much better in Oxford or Poole either with renters being left with less than £500 a month once the cost of living is taken into consideration.
Methodology
To discover where in the UK is the most affordable for single renters, we gathered data from online property listings and pulled the average rent for the largest cities across the UK.
We then looked at the average salary after tax from Payscale.co.uk, price of groceries from numbeo.com and cost of utilities from numbeo.com to calculate how much the average outgoings would be for a single renter in all of these locations.
Once we knew what the average outgoings were for each city we subtracted that from the income to see how much money the average renter would be left with.
Full results
