The number of households renting privately has grown by 1.12m over the last decade, a study by Hamptons has found.
The agency’s analysis of figures from the Office for National Statistics also revealed that the growth was led by some of the most deprived areas.
According to the study, there was an increase of 151,800 privately rented households living in the 10% most deprived areas of England and Wales between 2011 and 2021. This means that 23% of households in the poorest 10% of the country rent their home privately, up from 18% a decade ago.
Meanwhile, the 10% most affluent areas of England and Wales saw the private rented sector add fewer new households than anywhere else in the country; the number of households renting in these areas rose by 80,100, or by just over half the increase seen by the least affluent areas. Just 13% of households rent their home privately in the 10% most affluent areas, up from 10% ten years ago.
Overall, around 60% of privately rented homes are found in the 50% least affluent areas. While homeownership rates fell across the country over the last decade, generally they held up more strongly in the most affluent areas. Across the whole of England and Wales, tenants spent a total of £71.5bn on rent in 2022 – a record figure.
Commenting on the findings, Aneisha Beveridge, head of research at Hamptons, said: “2022 was a record-breaking year for rental growth. But even so, rents have failed to keep pace with wider inflation, and indeed landlords’ rising costs. With the cost-of-living crisis hitting tenants particularly hard, rental growth seems to have settled at a new pace, hovering around the 7% mark for the fifth consecutive month.
“While we may see the rate of growth soften a little more in the coming months, rents are still likely to rise around 5% in 2023 given the lack of homes available to rent and inflationary pressures on landlords.”