The Russell Group unis where rent is rising the most harrowing amounts in 2024

Being a student in 2024 really sucks. Rent for student accommodation and houses has risen by a truly extortionate amount at Russell Group unis over the last five years. At some unis, it’s more than doubled. Seriously. Here’s how much rent has risen by at all the Russell Group unis from 2020 to 2024. Warning: These numbers are truly tragic.

Rent has sky-rocketed for students over the last five years – even at Oxbridge, where students generally stay in university-owned accommodation throughout their degrees. Rent has risen the least at the University of Sheffield. Students are only paying 26 per cent more now than they were in 2024. I guess Sheffield students are officially banned from complaining. At the other end of the scale, Cardiff University and Wueen’s University Belfast students are spending over twice the amount on rent than they were in 2020. Thanks for that, cozzie livs.

We figured this out by comparing the average amount students were spending on rent monthly in each city with a Russell Group uni in 2024 to what they were spending in 2020. The data comes from Natwest’s annual student surveys.

The 2024 Natwest survey didn’t include data for Durham, Exeter or Southampton, so I got data for them from whatuni.com instead so they wouldn’t feel left out. The data for the University of Warwick is for the city of Coventry, because that’s confusingly where the uni really is.

So, here are all the Russell Group unis ranked by the percentage increase in rent from 2020 to 2024:

24. University of Sheffield – 26 per cent increase

£383 to £481

23. University of Oxford – 26 per cent increase

£582 to £763

22. University of Warwick – 41 per cent increase

£435 to £613

21. University of Leeds – 43 per cent increase

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£446 to £636

=16. King’s College London, Imperial College London, the London School of Economics and Politics (LSE), Queen Mary University of London and University College London (UCL) – 44 per cent increase

£717 to £1,032

Please spare a thought for the London students who have to spend their whole maintenance loans on rent

15. Newcastle University – 45 per cent increase

£359 to £522

14. University of Exeter – 46 per cent increase

£433 to £633

13. University of Manchester – 49 per cent increase

£424 to £633

12. University of Nottingham – 51 per cent increase

£436 to £660

11. Durham University – 52 per cent increase

£400 to £607

10. University of Liverpool – 53 per cent increase

£396 to £605

9. University of Edinburgh – 63 per cent increase

£503 to £819

Edinburgh looks pretty, but at what cost?
(Credit: Louisa McDaniel)

8. University of Birmingham – 65 per cent increase

£459 to £757

7. University of Southampton – 68 per cent increase

£393 to £660

=5. University of Bristol – 71 per cent increase

£491 to £840

=5. University of Cambridge – 71 per cent increase

£495 to £847

4. University of York – 81 per cent increase

£476 to £861

3. University of Glasgow – 88 per cent increase

£373 to £703

2. Cardiff University – 106 per cent increase

£328 to £676

1. Queen’s University Belfast – 120 per cent increase

£252 to £554

Feature image credit: Amelia Lockhart-Hourigan