Ranked: The Russell Group unis where rent is the most expensive for students in 2025

You might have chosen your uni based on the job prospects for grads, or the uni’s reputation. Or, you might have done the sensible thing and worked out where is actually an affordable place to spend upwards of three years. Rent varies a huge amount at different UK uni cities, particularly in places with Russell Group unis.

The most expensive Russell Group uni city for students to rent in is… drum roll please… London. Wow, what a shock. The rent is so high in the capital that students at London unis can actually get higher maintenance loans (although, how helpful that is for students is up for debate).

Newcastle and Sheffield are the cities with Russell Group unis where rent is the absolute cheapest. I guess you should’ve applied there instead.

Here’s something to keep in mind – most Oxbridge students who live in colleges, plus some Durham students at University College, Collingwood College, and Grey College don’t pay for their rooms during the holidays. So, not all the students in those cities will be paying rent all throughout the year.

The student accommodation site StuRents, who worked out the average weekly cost for student houses and halls in cities across the UK. They weighted the figures to take into account how many students end up in halls or houses in each place.

So, here are the Russell Group unis (minus Queen’s University Belfast) ranked by how expensive the rent is for students in that city:

23. Newcastle University – £118 per week

22. University of Sheffield – £123 per week

21. University of Warwick – £135 per week

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I have no clue what those Warwick students are doing on the lawn

20. University of Liverpool – £142 per week

19. Cardiff University – £151 per week

18. University of Southampton – £152 per week

17. University of Birmingham – £158 per week

16. University of Nottingham – £159 per week

15. University of Leeds – £162 per week

14. University of Oxford – £178 per week

Yup, some Oxford students get to live here

13. University of Exeter – £182 per week

=11. Durham University – £192 per week

=11. University of Manchester – £192 per week

10. University of Cambridge – £198 per week

9. University of Glasgow – £203 per week

8. University of Edinburgh – £204 per week

7. University of York – £206 per week

6. University of Bristol – £215 per week

=1. Imperial College London, King’s College London (KCL), London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), Queen Mary University of London, University College London (UCL) – £296 per week

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