UK rental yields by city

Rental yield is the first number most investors look at, and one of the easiest to misread. This table puts major UK cities on one footing: the average monthly private rent published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), set against the average house price published by HM Land Registry in the UK House Price Index (UK HPI) for the same area.

The result is an indicative gross yield for each city: a consistent, sourced starting point for comparing places. It is not the yield you would earn on a particular flat or house, and the sections below explain why.

What each column measures

• Average monthly rent is the ONS Price Index of Private Rents average for the area, across all property types and sizes. It measures the whole privately rented stock, existing tenancies as well as new lets, and the ONS rounds it to the nearest pound.
• Average house price is the UK HPI average for the area, across all property types, based on residential sales at market value. Below regional level it is a three-month moving average. It is based on a geometric mean, which gives less weight to high-value sales than a simple average and is typically lower.
• Indicative gross yield is our calculation: average monthly rent × 12 ÷ average house price, rounded to one decimal place. Neither the ONS nor HM Land Registry publishes this figure.
• Data months are the latest each source has published. Both were released on 21 October 2026. House prices run a month behind rents because the UK HPI is built from completed sales, which reach the index only once they are registered.

Council areas, not city centres

Each row in England and Wales is a local authority area, not a city centre or a postcode. Manchester means the Manchester local authority area, which is why Salford has its own row. City-centre apartments, suburban family houses and everything in between are blended into one average.

The latest months are provisional

HM Land Registry revises UK HPI figures for 12 months as more sales are registered, and the ONS reports that the first estimate for August 2026 is based on around 53% of sales in Great Britain. The ONS notes that local rent figures can move with the type and number of properties collected in a given month, and advises looking at longer-term trends for local areas rather than single months. A gap of a few tenths of a percentage point between two cities is not meaningful on its own.

What the table cannot tell you

A gross yield says nothing about capital growth, tenant demand, how long a property sits empty between tenancies or what it costs to run. And because yield is rent divided by price, a high figure can come from a low price as easily as from a strong rent. Hull has the lowest average rent in the table, £695 a month, yet a higher gross yield (6.1%) than Birmingham (5.7%) or Leeds (5.6%).

Every figure on this page is gross: rent before any cost. Net yield is what remains after the costs of owning and letting, and it is the more useful number when you compare two specific opportunities. A net yield calculation usually deducts:

• service charge and ground rent, where the property is leasehold
• letting and management fees
• landlord insurance
• repairs, maintenance and safety certificates
• an allowance for void periods between tenancies
• licensing fees, where the local council requires a licence

Many investors also add purchase costs to the price, such as stamp duty or its Scottish and Welsh equivalents, legal fees and furnishing, because that is the capital actually committed. Mortgage costs and tax then decide how much of the income you keep, and those depend on your own finance and circumstances.

The rental yield calculator takes a specific property from gross to net, and how to read a rental yield number properly explains what to ask whenever a yield is quoted to you. For purchase costs, use the stamp duty calculator. For the whole deal, including the mortgage, use the deal analyser.

An average tells you where to look. A decision needs a specific property: its price, the rent it can achieve, its running costs and how it fits your plan. PROXERA Wealth cross-checks every opportunity against data before it reaches you, and once you buy, PROXERA keeps tracking the numbers: income, costs and documents in one connected account.