Ask which British city has the cheapest rent and you get a confident answer that turns out to depend on which dataset you read. Rightmove's latest ranking puts Hull first at £802 a month, then Carlisle at £843 and Sunderland at £872. Zoopla's August report puts Burnley first at £646, and Carlisle is not in its top ten. The official figures from the ONS give Cumberland, the council area that includes Carlisle, the lowest number of the three.
None of them is wrong. They are measuring different things, and it helps to know which one matches your situation before you sign a lease 200 miles from home.
The Rightmove countdown
Rightmove's figures are average asking rents on new listings, published in May 2026. That is the price a landlord is advertising today, which makes it the closest thing to what you would pay if you moved next month.
- Hull, East Riding of Yorkshire: £802 a month
- Carlisle, Cumbria: £843 a month
- Sunderland, Tyne and Wear: £872 a month
Rightmove counts cities only. Widen the net to towns and the prices fall further: Grimsby at £673, Hartlepool at £676 and South Shields at £745, all cheaper than any city on the list.
Zoopla's list, and why Burnley wins it
Zoopla runs its own rental index from its own lettings data, and its August 2026 report ranks cities differently:
- Burnley: £646
- Middlesbrough: £671
- Sunderland: £672
- Hull: £678
Its UK average is £1,321 a month, London sits at £2,207, and the North East is the cheapest region at £766. Hull and Sunderland appear on both lists, which is about as close to a consensus as rental data gets.
The ONS number: what people actually pay
The ONS Price Index of Private Rents measures something else again: the average rent across all private tenancies, including people who signed years ago and have had one modest rise since. It moves slowly and comes in under the asking-rent figures, because long-running tenancies drag the average down.
For August 2026 it gives Hull £694, Sunderland £707 and Cumberland £681, against a UK average of £1,400. The detail that matters is the growth rate. Hull rents rose 7.4% in a year and Cumberland's 7.0%, while Sunderland's rose 4.6%. Cheap places are not staying cheap on their own. The gap is closing from below.
What the move actually saves
Compare within one dataset, because mixing sources inflates the gap. On Zoopla's numbers, Hull is £643 a month under the UK average, or about £7,700 a year. On the ONS figures the gap is £706 a month, roughly £8,500 a year. Against Zoopla's London average of £2,207 it is £1,529 a month, more than twice as much.
That is real money, but it is gross. The catch is everything a rent average leaves out:
- Bills and council tax. Energy costs depend on the property, not the postcode, so an old, draughty terrace can eat a meaningful slice of the saving. Ask for the EPC rating before you view.
- Getting around. A cheap flat 40 minutes from anywhere with a car you now need is not a cheap flat. Price the bus pass or the fuel before the rent.
- Wages. Local salaries tend to track local rents. The move pays best if your income stays where it is: a remote job, a transferable public-sector role, or a student loan that is the same size wherever you study.
- Moving costs. In England the Tenant Fees Act caps a holding deposit at one week's rent and a tenancy deposit at five weeks' where annual rent is under £50,000. Budget the van and a double month of rent anyway.
How to check the real number before you commit
The averages are a starting point, not a quote. Before you move, filter Rightmove and Zoopla for the exact property size and street you want, and look at what has let in the last few months, not just what is listed. If you are on Universal Credit, check the Local Housing Allowance rate for the area on gov.uk. That is the most your housing element will cover, whatever the listing says.
Then do the unglamorous sum: rent, bills, travel and council tax, here against there, for twelve months. Whether the difference is worth leaving your friends for is a question the spreadsheet can frame but only you can answer.