The worst UK cities to be a landlord in 2026

With the introduction of the first phase of the Renters’ Rights Act back in May, the times are a-changing for landlords in the UK.

The new legislation has vastly improved the situation for tenants, limiting rent increases to once a year (and in line with market rates), ending Section 21 ‘no-fault’ evictions, eradicating bidding wars, and stamping out discrimination against renters on benefits, among many other things.

Against that backdrop, property owners are making less and less money from renting out their spare homes, as new research has revealed the worst cities to be a landlord in 2026.

The study looks at the average monthly rent in each area, as well as the typical house price and average gross rental yield (AKA, the annual income a property generates when compared to the price it was bought for).

Right up at the top of the list is Cambridge, where the average tenant is shelling out £1,600 per month for a home in this university city.

But with the average home costing £408,709 and a rental yield of 4.7%, things aren’t super tenable for landlords here.

The same is largely true of Cambridge’s biggest academic rival, Oxford, where tenants are shelling out £1,778 per month for their digs, against an average property price of £424,755 and a rental yield of 5%.

Again, London isn’t much better, as it was ranked third by Landlord Resource’s research, despite expensive monthly rent of £2,119.

The going rate for a home here is £494,542, with an average rental yield of 5.1%. There are, however, areas with slightly better prospects, including Barking and Dagenham (6.22%), Newham (6%) and Bexley (5.8%).

Up north in York, the average is 5.3%, against £1,150 and £262,055 respectively, while Southend ranks in fifth place, at £1,225, £268,662, and 5.5%.

The classic north-south divide on house prices is good news for landlords higher up the country.

Buy-to-lets in the north reflect this pattern, as Glasgow sits at a slightly higher 7.8% and Liverpool at 7.7%.

According to the research, high rents aren’t the driving force behind these yields: it’s the fact that houses up here are cheaper.

Rents in Sunderland (where the rental yield is 9.3%) cost £659 per month, which is less than half the going rate in London, and this is because the average home here comes in at £85,000.

Up in Aberdeen, the gross yield is 8.3%, while Burnley rests at 8.2%, Dundee and Middlesbrough 8.1%, and Hull 8%.

A lack of genuinely affordable housing for tenants

Against this backdrop, though, things have arguably never been more difficult for UK renters.

With the cost of the average property skyrocketing out of the grasp of affordability, many young people have found themselves locked out of homeownership – and forced to rent instead.

For those without the help of generational wealth, it’s a lifetime membership of Generation Rent instead. In London alone, 30.1% of properties are now comprised of private rentals – the highest percentage since 1971.

Those struggling to afford private rents don’t always have the option of accessing council housing, either, as the UK’s council housing stock has slowly been depleting over the last 70 years.

In 2024, a study from Shelter found that while more than 200,000 social rent homes were built in England in the mid-1950s, by 2023 to 2024, the number of homes built had declined to just 10,000.

Existing housing stock has also been sold off through the controversial Right To Buy policy, which allows council tenants to buy their own homes at a discounted rate.

Initially introduced in 1980 by Thatcher’s government, the policy is still in place across England, and while it’s allowed many a coveted spot on the property ladder, it also meant that more and more council houses have slowly been transferred into private hands.

Statistics from the New Economics Foundation (NEF) found that more than four in 10 council homes sold under Right To Buy are now owned by private landlords – the same ones who are now allegedly struggling.

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