The rapid recovery in London rents post-Covid has seen London tenants leave the capital in record numbers, according to the January 2023 Hamptons Monthly Lettings Index.

The Index revealed that last year 40% of renters moving home in London chose to leave the capital, up from just 28% a decade ago. This equated to 90,370 households, with the numbers doubling since 2012. In total just over 718,000 tenants have left over the last decade. 62% of these were longer-term tenants, having moved into their home at least four years ago.

While homeowners outnumber renters in the capital by nearly 2:1, tenants tend to move home more often and are much more likely to leave. The 90,370 tenants leaving London last year compares to 62,210 homeowners moving out. This marks a return to form and a reversal of 2021 when more homeowners than renters left during a single year for the only time during the last decade.

The typical tenant doesn’t tend to move far. Each of the top 10 local authorities that most tenants move to directly border London. The top five were Tandridge, Epping Forest, Sevenoaks, Broxbourne and Dartford.

Tandridge topped the list with more than 52% of tenants in the area moving from London. However, tenants leaving the capital still tend to move further than homeowners, with 38% heading to the Midlands or the North of England, up from just 27% in 2019 and above the 13% of homeowners moving to the same regions.