Renter demand soars in UK commuter towns

• Suburban town Esher in Surrey, has seen one of the biggest year-on-year increases in demand (+32%) among renters and now has the highest demand of any UK town or city.
• Scottish town Kilmarnock, 40 minutes from Glasgow, has seen the biggest year-on-year rise (+100%) in renter demand in the country.
• Birkenhead (+33%) and Widnes (+22%) also see sharp increases in demand driven by renters priced further out of Liverpool; the city's average rent hit a record high in 2025.

Renters priced out and in search of more affordable options are fuelling rising demand in suburban and commuter towns, reveals new data from flatshare site SpareRoom.

The list of locations with the highest rises in flatsharer demand includes Esher, a Surrey commuter town 30-minutes from London Waterloo station. Esher hasn't just seen one of the biggest year-on-year increases in demand (+32%), it also currently has the highest demand in the whole of the UK, with 11.2 people searching per room available to rent.

Rising and high demand in Greater London - including Kingston-upon-Thames, Twickenham and Barnet - as well as parts of the South East within commuting distance of the capital like Horsham, are a knock-on effect of average rents in London having risen 37% in five years¹. Although London rents have stabilised over the past two years, there have been no significant decreases, and affordability remains a huge problem.

But it's not a problem that's unique to London. Scottish town Kilmarnock, well connected to Glasgow, has seen flatsharer demand double in the past year - the highest increase in the whole of the UK. Seven people are now searching per room available here. The average room rent in 2025 in Kilmarnock was £588 per month, saving the average flatsharer more than £1K a year compared to renting in Glasgow (£683 per month in 2025).

Motherwell and Paisley, where many people who commute to Glasgow live, also feature. Demand in Motherwell, to the south east of Glasgow, has risen by a third and in Paisley, to the west of the city, by 16%.

Renters in Liverpool have seen rents rise 40% over the past five years to hit a record high of £555 per month in the last quarter of 2025². Today, two towns on its edges - Birkenhead (+33%) and Widnes (+22%) - are seeing sharp rises in demand. Widnes now has the third highest demand in the UK: 10.2 people are now searching per room available to rent.

In the Midlands, West Bromwich - where 10.5 people are searching per room - Halesowen (9.8), Smethwick (7.4), Kidderminster (7) and Sutton Coldfield (6.7) are seeing some of the highest demand for rooms to rent in the UK. Meanwhile, renter demand in Birmingham has dropped 22% in the past year; there are now 2.8 people searching per room available in the UK's second-largest city.

Flatsharing is still largely concentrated on urban areas. In a March 2025 survey of 6,524 flatsharers by SpareRoom, 58% of renters described the area they lived in as urban. But a sizable proportion - 30% - were flatsharing in suburbia and the remaining 12% were living in a semi-rural or rural setting.

Matt Hutchinson, director of flatshare site SpareRoom, comments: “City living was once to flatsharers what suburban living was to families with 2.4 children. But the tides are turning. Given how high rents are now compared to where they were five years ago, people are faced with no choice but to chase affordability. It's not an urban exodus, but it's certainly flatshare sprawl.

“When even flatsharers are turning away from major cities, you know there's a huge problem with affordability. More renters migrating to cheaper towns puts upward pressure on rents. These towns won't be affordable much longer and then where do people go? Quite soon renters will simply be out of options. It's bad for the economy too which relies on a flexible workforce. If people can't take advantage of new job opportunities, everyone loses.”

Demand data

SpareRoom analysed renter demand in Q4 2025 in more than 200 of the UK's most popular towns and cities among flatsharers. The table below lists the locations that saw the highest year-on-year increases in demand:

The following table shows the towns and cities where demand was highest in Q4 2025. It includes areas where more than six people were searching per room available to rent: