The most expensive places to rent outside London

Growing rental demand is pushing prices up in these towns and cities.

Esher in Surrey is the most expensive place to rent a two-bedroom property in the UK outside of London, according to new research from Rightmove.

The popular property website has analysed its data on rental asking prices over the last year to determine the nation’s priciest areas as rental demand reaches record highs.

Rightmove reports email enquiries it passes on from home-hunters to letting agents has shot up 73% in the past year.

This has translated into a 4.6% rise in two-bedroom property rents, outside of London, over the last year compared to 2.5% the year before.

The average asking rent on a two-bedroom property (excluding London) is now £677 a month according to Rightmove’s figures.

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The most expensive places to rent

Here are the top 20 places to rent in the UK (excluding London) according to Rightmove.

Area	Average asking rent of a two-bed property per month
Esher, Surrey	£1,913
Oxford, Oxfordshire	£1,612
Weybridge, Surrey	£1,446
Marlow, Buckinghamshire	£1,424
Ascot, Berkshire	£1,412
Henley-On-Thames, Oxfordshire	£1,385
Egham, Surrey	£1,353
Windsor, Berkshire	£1,351
Bushey, Hertfordshire	£1,330
Guildford, Surrey	£1,309
Epsom, Surrey	£1,269
Walton-On-Thames, Surrey	£1,232
St. Albans, Hertfordshire	£1,222
Chertsey, Surrey	£1,210
Woking, Surrey	£1,209
Loughton, Essex	£1,208
Sevenoaks, Kent	£1,193
Reigate, Surrey	£1,184
Borehamwood, Hertfordshire	£1,184
Cambridge, Cambridgeshire	£1,182

Source: Rightmove

The most expensive place to rent a two-bedroom property outside of London is Esher, where you’ll have to pay nearly £2,000 a month. Asking rents here have risen 4.1% in the past year.

Oxford is the next most expensive for this kind of rental. Here asking rents average just over £1,600 a month an increase of 11.7% compared to a year before.

Rightmove says two bedroom average asking rents in both Esher and Oxford are more expensive than Outer London, where it’s currently £1,493 per month on average.

Sam Mitchell, Head of lettings at Rightmove, says: “People moving out of the capital to places in the South East has contributed to double-digit growth in rents in some of the most expensive places like Oxford and Henley-on-Thames. Factors like being close to good schools and transport links will always come at a premium, and as these figures show it’s wrong to think that anywhere outside of London will definitely be cheaper than in London."

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