Zoopla June 2026: national average rent +2.1%, but areas below £750 per month growing at nearly 5% while Birmingham rents fall. Buying in the wrong city right now is the difference between a void problem and a waiting list. The data is telling you which is which.
What Has Happened?
Zoopla released its June 2026 Rental Market Report on 11 June, covering rental activity to the end of May 2026. The national figures: average new let rent at £1,321 per month, up 2.1% year on year, or around £30 in cash terms. Rental demand, measured by enquiries per available property, fell to 5.6 in May 2026, the lowest reading in six years. At the 2022 peak, that figure was 15.5. Rental supply remains around 25% below pre-pandemic levels nationally, which means demand has eased faster than supply has recovered. A market that was severely undersupplied is moving toward balance, but has not arrived there yet.
The city-level breakdown is where the report gets specific. In areas where average rents are below £750 per month, rents are rising at close to 5% on average, more than double the 2.1% national rate. Carlisle is near the top of the UK growth table with around 8% to 9% annual growth. Chester is up around 7%. Kilmarnock in Scotland is also running at close to 9%. These are markets where the combination of thin supply and growing local employment has pushed rents well ahead of inflation without yet hitting an affordability ceiling.
At the other end, Birmingham rents are down around 1% year on year on new lets. Nottingham is also negative. Bournemouth has seen rents fall. These are all markets where a significant volume of new rental stock has entered the market over recent years, whether through new build apartment completions, purpose-built student accommodation expansions, or HMO conversions. London is a specific case: rental demand in London is actually growing at around 6% on Zoopla data, but actual rent growth on new lets is only around 2%. Demand is rising but affordability has hit a ceiling that prevents rents from translating the demand signal into income growth.
There is also a gap between the Zoopla new let figures and the ONS all-tenancy data worth understanding. ONS Private Sector Rent Statistics to April 2026 put the UK average across all rented properties at £1,381 per month, up 3.5% year on year, with the North East leading at 6.5% annual growth. That figure includes all existing tenancies as well as new lets. The gap between the Zoopla new let figure (£1,321, +2.1%) and the ONS all-tenancy figure (£1,381, +3.5%) reflects the fact that many existing tenants are staying in place rather than moving, so landlords with long-standing tenants are applying Section 13 Form 4A increases that sit between the new let rate and the ONS all-tenancy growth rate. Two different measuring sticks, both valid, measuring different things.
Why This Matters to UK Property Investors
The national average conceals the investment decision. A landlord buying in Birmingham in June 2026 on the expectation of 5% annual rent growth is not going to get it. The Zoopla data says Birmingham new let rents are around 1% negative. That does not mean Birmingham is a broken market, but it does mean the income growth assumption built into many spreadsheets is wrong for that city right now. The same data says Carlisle and Chester are running at 7% to 9%. That difference materialises in yields, in void periods, and in the strength of any Section 13 Form 4A case you want to make.
The 5.6 enquiries per property figure is worth reading carefully. A six-year low sounds like bad news. In absolute terms it is not. Before the pandemic, the Zoopla baseline was roughly 2.8 to 3 enquiries per property. At 5.6, the market is still running at roughly double pre-pandemic demand levels. What has changed is the comparison with the 2022 and 2023 extreme peaks, which were abnormal. The market is normalising, not collapsing. For investors who built void risk assumptions on 15 enquiries per property, the adjustment downward is real. For anyone modelling on 3 to 4 enquiries, 5.6 is fine.
The Zoopla vs ONS distinction has a direct implication for acquisition modelling. If you are buying a property to re-let immediately, the Zoopla new let figure is the right reference point for what rental income you can achieve. If you are buying a property with an existing tenant and holding it, the ONS all-tenancy growth rate is more relevant for forecasting what Section 13 increases you can justify. In the North East, that distinction matters: Zoopla new lets are growing at around 3.8%, but ONS all tenancies are at 6.5%. An existing tenant on a tenancy from 2022 is likely well below the current open market rate. A Section 13 notice in June 2026 in Sunderland or Middlesbrough has a strong evidential base from comparables.
The cheap-area surge is also a signal about where the structural undersupply is sharpest. Markets like Carlisle, Burnley and Halifax have seen very little new rental supply added in recent years. Planning constraints, lower developer returns, and geographic factors have kept new build activity limited in smaller northern towns. When tenant demand from local employment is stable and new supply is not appearing, rents move upward consistently. That is a more durable growth story than markets that have seen large new build completions temporarily driving down vacancy rates.
The Risks Investors Need to Understand
The category of "areas with average rents below £750 per month" covers a wide range of markets with very different fundamentals. Carlisle growing at 8% to 9% is not the same risk profile as a former coalfield town in the same rent band with a shrinking employer base. The Zoopla data tells you which direction rents are moving in the broad category. It does not tell you whether the employment base supporting that demand is stable or whether a single large employer exit could reverse the picture. Postcode-level due diligence on the tenant pool still applies, regardless of how the national or regional data reads.
The Birmingham fall is also worth understanding properly before concluding it represents permanent underperformance. Birmingham's rental market in 2024 and 2025 saw a significant increase in available rental stock from two sources: apartment completions on schemes approved during the 2017-2021 planning surge, and HMO conversions concentrated in B1 to B7 postcodes. That supply wave is not permanent. If completions slow in 2026 and 2027, which seems likely given planning approval rates, the supply overhang will gradually clear. A landlord who bought a Birmingham B15 or B16 house with a garden in 2020 on a 6% yield is in a different position from someone who bought a new build apartment in B1 in 2023 on a 4% yield. The postcode and the stock type within Birmingham matters more than the city average.
The London paradox is worth flagging specifically. Rental demand in London up 6% on Zoopla data, but rent growth only around 2%. That is a signal that a large number of tenant enquiries are failing to convert to lets because potential renters cannot afford the rents being asked. Affordability failure is not the same as weak demand. For a London landlord trying to fill a void, it means more viewings and longer voids as tenants search for something they can stretch to. The 6% demand figure will not automatically produce income growth above 2%. London is a market where tenant demand is there but affordability is genuinely the binding constraint on income growth.
On the 5.6 enquiries per property reading: in the cheapest markets growing at 5%, where rents are around £650 to £700 per month, enquiry volumes are likely running above the national average. But the number of available rental homes in those markets is also small. A landlord in Carlisle with a vacant two-bed is probably receiving more than 5.6 enquiries. One landlord with a void in a weak market could easily be at 2. The national figure is an average across all markets and does not tell you what a specific postcode looks like. Going into any new market blind on void risk, without talking to local agents about actual let times, is a common error in analysing data at national resolution.
Where the Opportunity Could Be
North East England remains the clearest overlap of high rental growth and affordable entry prices. ONS April 2026 data confirms 6.5% annual all-tenancy rent growth in the region, the highest of any English region. Gross BTL yields in Sunderland SR1 to SR4, Middlesbrough TS1 to TS5 and Hartlepool TS24 to TS26 run at 9.2% to 9.3% (Hamptons and Zoopla). Average rents in the North East sit well within the sub-£750 band that Zoopla's June 2026 report identifies as the strongest growth category. The case for the North East in mid-2026 is not a regional narrative; it is the specific intersection of a cheap market, growing employment, structurally tight supply and documented rent growth.
The northern towns highlighted directly in the Zoopla data, Carlisle CA1 to CA3, Chester CH1 to CH3, and smaller Yorkshire towns like Halifax HX1 to HX3, are all worth assessing specifically. These are markets where a two-bed mid-terrace or end-terrace can be acquired for £100,000 to £160,000, where rents in the £650 to £850 per month range produce gross yields of 6% to 8.5%, and where rental growth of 7% to 9% means the Section 13 Form 4A income case in July 2026 is among the strongest in the country. Thin markets require local agent relationships to source stock efficiently, but the yield arithmetic is more compelling than most city centre options.
The Section 13 timing point is practical and immediately actionable. In any market where rents have grown at 5% or more in the past twelve months, a landlord who has not served a Form 4A notice in the last year is collecting below-market rent and has no legal mechanism to recover the gap without the formal notice process. Two months' notice served in the next two to three weeks produces a new rent date of around August or September. For a landlord in a growing market on a tenancy that started in 2023 and has not had a formal review, the difference between the 2023 rent and the 2026 open market comparable could be £50 to £100 per month. On an annual basis, on a property yielding £700 per month, that is 7% to 14% more income. The growth is already in the market. The question is whether you capture it.
For landlords reviewing Birmingham city centre flat holdings, the honest assessment is that the rental income growth story for that specific sub-market is weaker right now than national data suggests. That does not require panic or immediate disposal. But it does mean that a rent review modelled on 3% to 4% growth is overoptimistic, and a strategy for that stock should factor in flat or marginally negative rental growth for the next twelve to eighteen months. If the fundamentals of the specific property work at flat rents, hold it. If the case for that property required ongoing rent growth to justify the mortgage cost, reassess.
Arsh's Investor View
I bought my first HMO in Selly Oak, Birmingham in 2003. Four-bed terrace, £62,500, four Birmingham University students. That was a different Birmingham from the one showing up in the Zoopla June 2026 data. Birmingham had undersupply and a growing student population and low absolute rents relative to yields. The data was clearly positive. I do not recognise that picture in what the June 2026 figures are showing for Birmingham city centre flat stock.
The wider pattern in the Zoopla data is one I have seen before, in different forms. The markets being marketed most actively to new investors are often the ones where the supply pipeline has already responded to the demand signal. Birmingham got a lot of attention from 2018 onwards, partly justified, but the attention brought development, and the development brought supply that has now caught up with demand. Carlisle and Burnley and Halifax are not being headlined in conference brochures. The data says they are growing faster. Those two things are related.
The ONS versus Zoopla gap matters practically. I track both because they tell me different things. ONS all-tenancy figures tell me what my existing tenants' rents look like relative to market. Zoopla new let figures tell me what I would achieve if I had a void to fill today. In Sunderland, if a tenant has been in a property since 2022 on a rent of £620 per month, the ONS data says comparable market rents have grown 6.5% per year since then. The new let rate for a comparable property today might be £740 to £760. The gap between £620 and £750 is not a free windfall; it requires a properly served Section 13 Form 4A with two months' notice and documented comparables. But it is real money and it is legally available. A lot of landlords in good markets are not capturing it because they do not want the administrative hassle or do not realise the process has changed since May 2026.
My read on the 5.6 enquiries figure: do not anchor on the six-year low headline. Three enquiries per property was normal in 2019. Five and a half is a normalisation, not a crisis. The difference between now and the 2022 extreme is that landlords who were passively receiving 15 viewing requests per void now need to make their listings competitive. That means accurate photos, sensible pricing, and realistic response times. These are basic things that mattered before 2022 and will matter again now the market has come off the boil.
How Property Investor App Can Help
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Key Takeaways
- Zoopla June 2026 Rental Market Report: UK average new let rent £1,321 per month, up 2.1% year on year. That national figure covers two distinct markets: areas where average rents are below £750 per month, growing at close to 5%, more than twice the national rate, and several major cities where rents are falling. Birmingham is down around 1%, Nottingham is also negative. Carlisle is growing at around 8% to 9%, Chester at around 7%.
- Rental demand fell to a six-year low at 5.6 enquiries per available property in May 2026, down from the 2022 peak of 15.5. That headline sounds alarming. The context is that the pre-pandemic 2019 baseline was around 2.8 to 3 enquiries per property. The market is normalising from an abnormal extreme, not collapsing. In the cheapest growth markets where supply is thinnest, local enquiry volumes will run above the 5.6 national average.
- ONS April 2026 all-tenancy UK average rent: £1,381 per month, up 3.5%. Zoopla June 2026 new let average: £1,321, up 2.1%. The gap between these two measures reflects existing tenants staying in place rather than moving. For acquisition modelling, use the Zoopla new let figure for void-and-relet scenarios. For Section 13 rent review strategy on existing tenancies, ONS comparable data provides the stronger evidential base.
- The sub-£750 monthly rent market nationally is where structural undersupply is most acute relative to new build completions. Carlisle, Chester, North East towns, Lancashire and Yorkshire smaller cities all sit in this band. Gross yields of 6% to 9.3% are achievable at entry prices of £80,000 to £160,000 in these markets (Hamptons and Zoopla data for North East; comparable for other northern towns). These are not fashionable markets. The Zoopla data says they are the growth markets.
- Section 13 Form 4A timing: landlords in markets where rents have grown at 5% or more over the past twelve months and who have not served a formal rent increase notice have been leaving income on the table. Two months' notice served in the next three weeks produces a new rent from around August or September 2026. In the North East, where ONS data shows 6.5% annual growth, a tenant on a 2022 rent may be paying £100 to £130 per month below the current open market comparable. Capturing that through a properly served Form 4A is legally straightforward and income-relevant.
- Birmingham rental market: -1% new let rents in Zoopla June 2026 data, reflecting supply overhang from 2019-2024 apartment completions. This is not a crisis for landlords holding Birmingham houses, where different supply dynamics apply. It is a specific warning for city centre flat stock. Portfolio landlords with Birmingham B1 to B5 apartment holdings should model income at flat or negative rental growth for the next twelve to eighteen months rather than assuming a reversion to the 3% to 4% growth rates recorded in 2022 and 2023.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does the Zoopla June 2026 Rental Market Report show?
Zoopla published its June 2026 Rental Market Report on 11 June 2026, covering data to the end of May. The headline figures: UK average new let rent at £1,321 per month, up 2.1% year on year. Rental demand measured at 5.6 enquiries per available property, the lowest in six years, down from the 2022 peak of 15.5. Rental supply remains roughly 25% below pre-pandemic levels nationally. The most significant finding is the divergence by market: areas with average rents below £750 per month are growing at close to 5%, more than double the national rate. Several major city markets, including Birmingham and Nottingham, show negative year-on-year rent movements on new lets. Carlisle, Chester and several northern towns are growing at 7% to 9%. The national average does not represent any single market accurately.
Why are Birmingham rents falling in 2026?
Birmingham new let rents on Zoopla June 2026 data are running at around -1% year on year. The primary cause is a supply overhang from residential apartment completions during the 2019-2024 development cycle, concentrated in the B1 to B7 Birmingham city centre postcodes. A significant number of schemes that received planning permission during the post-HS2 development boom have completed in 2024 and 2025, adding new rental stock at a point when demand growth has moderated. This dynamic applies most clearly to city centre flat stock. Birmingham houses in outer postcode areas like B29, B30, B42 and B44 are operating on different supply dynamics and are less affected by the city centre completion wave. The -1% figure is a weighted average for the Birmingham market as a whole and does not describe all Birmingham property equally.
Which UK areas have the strongest rental growth in June 2026?
According to Zoopla June 2026 data, the fastest-growing rental markets are predominantly in areas where average rents sit below £750 per month. Carlisle is near the top of the table with around 8% to 9% annual growth. Chester is growing at around 7%. In Scotland, Kilmarnock is also running at around 9%. These markets share characteristics: limited new build rental supply, stable local employment, and rents that are still well below national averages and therefore below the affordability ceilings that have flattened growth in Birmingham, Nottingham and parts of London. ONS April 2026 all-tenancy data, which includes existing tenancies not just new lets, shows the North East of England at 6.5% annual growth, the highest of any English region, with Yorkshire and the East Midlands both above 4%.
What is the difference between Zoopla and ONS rental figures?
Zoopla tracks rents on new lets, properties that are being freshly marketed and let to new tenants. ONS Private Sector Rent Statistics tracks all private tenancies, including existing lets where tenants have stayed in place and received Section 13 Form 4A rent increases. The two measures routinely differ. Zoopla June 2026 shows UK average new let rent at £1,321 per month, up 2.1%. ONS April 2026 shows UK average across all tenancies at £1,381 per month, up 3.5%. The ONS figure is higher because it captures rent increases on long-standing tenancies where landlords have been applying market-tracking increases each year. The Zoopla figure is lower because it reflects what the market is actually achieving when a property becomes vacant and is freshly marketed. For modelling void-and-relet income on a new acquisition, the Zoopla new let figure is the more relevant reference point.
How do landlords increase rent under the Renters' Rights Act in 2026?
From 1 May 2026, the only lawful mechanism for rent increases on assured periodic tenancies in England is Section 13 of the Housing Act 1988, using the updated Form 4A. The old Form 4 is no longer valid. Section 13 allows a landlord to propose a market-rate rent increase once in any twelve-month period. The notice must be served using Form 4A, give at least two months' notice before the new rent takes effect, and propose a rent that reflects genuine open market comparable levels. Tenants can refer the notice to the First-tier Tribunal Property Chamber, which will assess whether the proposed increase reflects market comparables. Under the Renters' Rights Act, the Tribunal cannot set a rent above the landlord's proposed figure. In markets where rents are growing at 5% or more, a landlord who has not served a Section 13 notice in twelve months should consider doing so in June or July 2026 to capture increases effective from August or September.
