Room rents in Wales have elevated by 40% over the previous 5 years, rising from £419 to £586 per 30 days, in keeping with knowledge from flatshare website SpareRoom. Over the identical interval, UK-wide rents have grown by 28%, that means flatsharers in Wales now face an extra £167 per 30 days, or £2,004 per 12 months, to cowl lease.
Within the third quarter of 2025, the common room lease in Wales rose 2.3% year-on-year, practically thrice the UK common enhance of 0.8%. The rise is being pushed largely by Cardiff, the place rents elevated 5% year-on-year. In contrast, Edinburgh noticed rents fall 4% over the identical interval, whereas London rents remained unchanged.
Over the previous 5 years, rents in Cardiff have climbed 49%, from £443 to £661 per 30 days, in contrast with a 37% enhance in London.
The graph under reveals how room rents in Cardiff rose sharply from mid 2021, after ‘keep native’ restrictions had been lifted. Livid ranges of demand compelled up rents, which have by no means recovered:
Taking a look at lease rises throughout Wales’s three greatest cities, Newport overtook Swansea In Q1 2024 for the primary time since Q3 2021 and has had the next common room lease ever since. Renters pay 7% extra for a room in Newport, the place the common lease is now £575pm, than in Swansea (£539pm):
There’s a rental provide disaster in Wales, with 3.8 individuals looking out per room accessible to lease in Q3 2025 in keeping with SpareRoom knowledge. However provide has been on an upward trajectory and it peaked in January 2025 (January being the busiest month of the 12 months for brand new flatshare adverts).
The info additionally reveals the Welsh market is being buoyed by households who lease out rooms to lodgers. In 2025, round a 3rd (32%) of all flatshare adverts in Wales on SpareRoom had been posted by ‘lodger landlords’. That is a lot larger than the determine for the entire of the UK, which is round 1 / 4 (24%).
Matt Hutchinson, director of flatshare website SpareRoom, commented: “The decline of inexpensive housing, coupled with weak wage progress and the excessive value of residing, is pushing extra individuals into the flatshare market, placing immense stress on the already restricted provide of shared lodging.
“On the identical time renters are struggling, even years later, from market volatility within the aftermath of the pandemic which compelled rents as much as ranges past individuals’s ceiling of affordability. They by no means got here again down once more as a result of demand has all the time outweighed provide. With out households renting rooms to lodgers, demand within the Welsh rental market can be much more intense and common rents can be larger.”
