Renting in Wakefield: New ONS data reveals Wakefield renters paying £55 more every month

Data collected between October 1, 2022 and September 30, 2023 showed that the median monthly private rental price in Wakefield rose to £650.

That is a rise of £55 from £595 for same time period in 2021 to 2022.

Out of the five metropolitan boroughs of West Yorkshire, rent increased the most in Kirklees at £75 a month, Bradford the least at £45, and Leeds, Wakefield and Calderdale all rose by £55 – taking West Yorkshire’s new median monthly rent to £650.

For national context, the area with the highest median monthly rent in 2022 to 2023 was Inner London, standing at £1,900 per month, and the lowest was the North East, which was £550 per month.

In 2021 to 2022, the median monthly rental price (for all bedroom categories) in England was £800, which rose to £850 in 2022 to 2023.

This means that between the two time periods, the gap between the median monthly rental price in Wakefield compared to England as a whole shrunk from £205 to £200.

In 2021 to 2022, Wakefield was about 2.5 per cent cheaper to rent in than the median monthly costs for the Yorkshire and the Humber region as a whole, which was £610 at the time.

Data from last year, however, shows that monthly rent in Wakefield grew to match the new median monthly rent for the region, both of which now stand at £650.

This increase in rent also means that the median cost of monthly rent in Wakefield now matches Hambleton, Selby and Craven – all of which were more expensive than Wakefield in the period 2021 to 2022.

Doncaster was the only region in Yorkshire and the Humber to decrease in monthly rental price, falling from £550 in 2021 to 2022 to £540 in 2022 to 2023.

The statistics used in the surveys were based on samples of 509,390 and 459,340 private rental data records in 2021 to 2022 and 2022 to 2023 (respectively) from the Valuation Office Agency lettings information database.

All data is based on the median monthly private rental price for the respective locations.