Rent for a one bedroom dwelling as a percentage of residents' gross pay by borough (2024 Q4 and 2025 Q4)
What does this indicator show?
This chart shows what share of a typical resident's pay would go on renting a one-bed flat in each London borough. It compares average rents to median pre-tax earnings — giving a sense of how affordable (or not) each borough is for the people who live there.
Note: this compares borough-level averages, not what individual renters actually pay. Many renters earn less than the median, and those on low incomes often spend a far higher proportion on rent.
Rent costs more than half of typical London earnings
Across London, the average one-bed costs 52% of median pre-tax pay — significantly higher than the rest of England, where it's 42%.
Where is rent most unaffordable?
In every London borough, average one-bed rent is at least a third of median pay.
The most unaffordable boroughs are in Inner London. In Westminster and Kensington & Chelsea, average rent is nearly 70% of local median pay.
The most affordable boroughs — Bromley, Havering, and Sutton — are on London's outskirts, where average rents are around 34% of earnings.
The map below shows that, by this measure, the least affordable boroughs are all located in central West London, and the most affordable are all on the city's outskirts.