The cost of renting a room remains steady but London...

The cost of renting a room in the UK has dropped by an average of 3% over the past 12 months due to struggles in the capital, according to the latest figures from SpareRoom.

But the data, which analysed almost 250,000 room listings, reveals that when London is excluded, prices actually increased by 2% nationwide to hit an average of £484 per calendar month (pcm).

North West England and Northern Ireland have seen the largest rent increases of 3% over the past year, and yet Northern Ireland remains the cheapest region to rent in the UK at an average of £365pcm.

At the other end of the scale, when excluding London, the South East currently holds the top spot for the most expensive region in the UK to rent a room at £528pcm, followed by East Anglia at £493pcm and Scotland at £480pcm.

In terms of the capital, south east London continues to be the cheapest area to rent at an average rent of £727pcm and unsurprisingly west central and east central come in top as the most expensive postcode districts in London at £1,076pcm and £1,007pcm respectively.

The NW postcode district has experienced the biggest drop across the capital, down 2%, whilst EC has seen the biggest increase, up 5%. EC3, has seen the highest increase in rent across the whole city, up a massive 20% to £1,082pcm.

When it comes to the most popular area, east London ranks number one with the likes of Shoreditch (E1), Canary Wharf (E14) and Bow (E3) revealed as the most busy flatshare areas in London based on supply figures.

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