Copeland, Ribble Valley and Staffordshire Moorlands were the most affordable places to privately rent in England last year, Paragon Bank analysis has revealed. 

Paragon’s Rental Affordability Index takes recently published Government data, and by overlaying gross annual earnings with the average amount spent on rent, reveals an average rental affordability ratio for local authority areas across England. 

On average, privately renting a property in Copeland, Cumbria, costs £5,236 per annum. Cross referencing this with the salaries earned by residents in the area, averaging £49,812 annually, provides a rental affordability ratio of 10.5%. 

This places Copeland at the top of the list of most affordable places to rent privately, followed by Ribble Valley in Lancashire with a ratio of 15.8% and Staffordshire Moorlands, where rents account for 15.9% of annual earnings on average. 

The least affordable local authorities in which to rent a home were all found in London. In response to this, tenants in the capital often spread rental costs with others, resulting in London having the highest proportion of UK renters who share a property with people outside of their family. 

In Kensington & Chelsea average annual incomes stood at £34,157 in 2021, while mean rents totalled £36,520 per year. This results in an affordability ratio of 106.9%, making the area England’s least affordable rental location by a considerable margin.