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Student Accommodation

How much is student accommodation?

We all know rent gobbles up a huge chunk of Maintenance Loans – but which students have to fork out the most? And which gets the best deal? Use our table to find out.

houses in England and shocked face

Credit: David Iliff - Wikimedia

Rent costs are the bane of most students' lives. As soon as that Maintenance Loan drops in your account, the majority of it is likely to be hoovered up by rent costs pretty quickly.

But there's no denying some students have it worse off than others. Depending on which university you go to, the rent costs you'll face can differ drastically.

In our National Student Accommodation Survey 2024, we uncovered which students pay the most in rent. As is to be expected, the majority of universities with the highest costs are in London. However, some unis elsewhere in the country can have pretty expensive rents, too.

Find out where your university ranks on the rent chart.

Check out our interview with a guy whose rent, when combined with his flatmates, was £2,275 for the student house from hell.

Which universities have the highest rent?

In our latest accommodation survey, among those who pay rent, the average cost was £550 per month.

As you may expect, the uni where students spend the most on rent is based in London. With an average rent of £975 per month, London South Bank University was the most expensive uni for accommodation. That's around 1.8x the national average!

The other unis in the top four for highest rent – Queen Mary, Royal Holloway and UCL – each had an average monthly rent of close to £900 (£909, £896 and £893 respectively).

Cheapest universities for accommodation

row of terraced housing

Credit: Manchesterphotos - Wikimedia

Among surveyed students, those at York St John had the cheapest accommodation, reporting an average monthly rent of £363 (around two-thirds of the national average).

For a picture of the cost of rent at universities across the UK, search our table below.

Rent costs by university

UniversityAverage monthly rent
London South Bank975
Queen Mary909
Royal Holloway896
UCL893
Greenwich888
King's College London849
Birkbeck834
City, University of London833
BPP825
Imperial College London814
West London787
Bath780
Brunel*778
Kingston*778
London Metropolitan*778
London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine*778
LSE*778
Ravensbourne*778
Royal Veterinary College*778
St Mary's*778
Trinity Laban*778
University of the Arts London756
Sussex741
Middlesex739
Westminster722
Oxford Brookes708
St George's, University of London700
Cambridge679
Bournemouth671
SOAS663
Surrey653
Manchester Met651
Bristol628
Arts University Bournemouth*621
Bath Spa*621
Plymouth Marjon*621
Edinburgh Napier620
Hertfordshire617
Durham617
East London617
Exeter609
Kent603
Buckingham597
Leeds Beckett595
West of England, Bristol586
Leeds585
Edinburgh583
Loughborough581
York580
Bucks New*576
Canterbury Christ Church*576
Oxford576
Winchester*576
Gloucestershire575
Reading571
Warwick569
Worcester562
Aston556
Northumbria554
Falmouth551
East Anglia*543
Essex*543
Suffolk*543
Anglia Ruskin542
Chester541
Bedfordshire533
Glasgow533
Portsmouth531
Nottingham530
Leeds Arts516
Manchester515
Plymouth512
Birmingham511
Robert Gordon505
University College Birmingham504
Bishop Grosseteste*504
De Montfort*504
Liverpool John Moores501
Heriot-Watt500
Norwich University of the Arts500
Edge Hill*499
Liverpool*499
Liverpool Hope*499
Royal Northern College of Music*499
Salford*499
UCLan*499
Birmingham City*498
Newman*498
University for the Creative Arts*498
Lincoln498
Sunderland*493
Keele492
Lancaster491
Bradford*489
Derby489
Huddersfield*489
Hull*489
Leeds Trinity*489
Chichester485
Southampton Solent484
Wolverhampton483
Sheffield Hallam476
Nottingham Trent473
Staffordshire471
Glasgow School of Art*469
Highlands and Islands*469
St Andrews*469
Stirling*469
Arden468
Southampton464
Open University463
Aberdeen462
Coventry460
Brighton453
West of Scotland438
Northampton433
Dundee430
Newcastle416
Harper Adams415
Leicester409
Glasgow Caledonian408
Strathclyde386
Sheffield378
Teesside375
York St John363

* In these instances, there were not enough respondents (or too many significant outliers) to give a reliable average. As an indicative amount, we have used the average rent for each university's region.

Does the Maintenance Loan cover the cost of rent?

Each year the results of our National Student Accommodation Survey highlight just how tough it is to rent while at uni, and something needs to change.

With rent prices still worryingly high, many students have complained that their Maintenance Loan just doesn't cover it.

In the survey, 64% of those who pay rent said they struggled with the costs at least some of the time, including 20% who described it as a constant struggle.

Clearly, there's an issue here, and 61% of students are having to borrow money from sources such as their parents, banks and friends to help pay the rent.

A major issue is that Maintenance Loans, especially for students from England, haven't been keeping up with inflation over recent years. We're calling on the government to change this. Please sign and share our petition!

To find out more about the realities of renting at uni, see the full results of the National Student Accommodation Survey.

Jessica Murray

WRITTEN BY Jessica Murray

As an Editor of Save the Student, Jessica Murray has written extensively on student money news and money-saving tips. She was co-host of our podcast, No More Beans, and is now a journalist at the Guardian. Her tips and insights range from fun guides for freshers, to information for graduates entering the workplace.
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