Cost of living comparison
Two things change when you move: what the taxman takes, and what the landlord takes. This compares 36 UK cities on both at once, so the answer is the money actually left in your account rather than a salary that sounds bigger.
Calculator
Cost of living calculator
Rent is the August 2026 ONS average. Tax is 2026/27 on a standard code, no pension or student loan.
To live the same in London as you do on £45,000 in Manchester, you would need:
£63,569
Rent and tax together leave you £959.00 a month worse off in London on the same pay.
Rent takes 78% of take-home in London.
The salary you need is £18,569 more than you earn now.
Rent tends to cost 69.8% more in London.
Income tax and NI are identical either side of this move.
You would keep £661.30 a month after rent, £959.00 less than now.
The same £45,000, both places
Monthly.
| Monthly | Manchester | London | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Take-home pay | £2,993.30 | £2,993.30 | No change: 0.0% |
| Income tax and NI | £756.70 | £756.70 | No change: 0.0% |
| Average rent | £1,373.00 | £2,332.00 | Up: +69.8% |
| Left after rent | £1,620.30 | £661.30 | Down: -59.2% |
Rent by size and property typeUp: +69.8%London vs Manchester
ONS averages for August 2026. A dash means ONS suppressed that cell because too few properties of that kind were let in the area.
| Monthly rent | Manchester | London | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| One bed | £1,003.00 | £1,760.00 | Up: +75.5% |
| Two bed | £1,233.00 | £2,232.00 | Up: +81.0% |
| Three bed | £1,433.00 | £2,643.00 | Up: +84.4% |
| Four or more | £2,014.00 | £3,646.00 | Up: +81.0% |
| Flat or maisonette | £1,147.00 | £2,056.00 | Up: +79.3% |
| Terraced | £1,405.00 | £2,840.00 | Up: +102.1% |
| Semi-detached | £1,496.00 | £2,946.00 | Up: +96.9% |
| Detached | £1,878.00 | £2,920.00 | Up: +55.5% |
Where £45,000 goes furthest
Take-home minus the average rent, across all 36 places. The order moves with the salary, because tax is progressive.
- 1Hull£694 rent£2,299
- 2Stoke-on-Trent£715 rent£2,278
- 3Bradford£745 rent£2,248
- 4SwanseaWales£852 rent£2,141
- 5DundeeScotland£825 rent£2,135
- 6Derby£860 rent£2,133
- 7AberdeenScotland£845 rent£2,115
- 8Liverpool£913 rent£2,080
- 9Sheffield£931 rent£2,062
- 10Wolverhampton£945 rent£2,048
- 11NewportWales£959 rent£2,034
- 12Plymouth£1,004 rent£1,989
- 13Nottingham£1,014 rent£1,979
- 14Coventry£1,020 rent£1,973
- 15Leicester£1,023 rent£1,970
- 16Birmingham£1,099 rent£1,894
- 17Norwich£1,142 rent£1,851
- 18Leeds£1,145 rent£1,848
- 19CardiffWales£1,177 rent£1,816
- 20York£1,199 rent£1,794
- 21Newcastle upon Tyne£1,215 rent£1,778
- 22Southampton£1,257 rent£1,736
- 23GlasgowScotland£1,266 rent£1,694
- 24Exeter£1,318 rent£1,675
- 25Milton Keynes£1,344 rent£1,649
- 26Portsmouth£1,368 rent£1,625
- 27Manchester£1,373 rent£1,620
- 28Bournemouth£1,398 rent£1,595
- 29EdinburghScotland£1,415 rent£1,545
- 30Reading£1,574 rent£1,419
- 31Cambridge£1,805 rent£1,188
- 32Brighton£1,808 rent£1,185
- 33Bristol£1,883 rent£1,110
- 34Bath£1,885 rent£1,108
- 35Oxford£1,963 rent£1,030
- 36London£2,332 rent£661
Compare against another city
UK average rent was £1,400.00 in August 2026: £1,459.00 England, £1,013.00 Scotland, £846.00 Wales.
Average monthly rent across the UK
These ONS national estimates cover all property sizes together. They are published national figures, not an average of the selected cities in this calculator. Annual growth compares each reference month with the same month a year earlier.
| Area | Monthly rent | Annual growth | Reference month |
|---|---|---|---|
| United Kingdom | £1,400 | 3.8% | August 2026 (provisional) |
| England | £1,459 | 4.0% | August 2026 |
| Wales | £846 | 4.3% | August 2026 |
| Scotland | £1,013 | 1.1% | August 2026 |
| Northern Ireland | £874 | 1.6% | June 2026 |
Northern Ireland is reported later than Great Britain. ONS estimates its contribution to the latest two UK months, making the UK figures provisional. Collection methods also differ between nations, so these are broad benchmarks rather than quotes for a comparable property or a new tenancy.
Source: ONS private rent and house prices, September 2026, released 16 September; checked 27 September 2026.
What this compares, and what it does not
Two costs, both official and both genuinely local: income tax and National Insurance on 2026/27 rates, and average private rent from the ONS Price Index of Private Rents for August 2026. Everything else is left out on purpose. There is no current official series for what groceries, transport or utilities cost in one British city against another. The last attempt, the ONS relative regional consumer price levels, was published in 2016. Putting a 2016 number beside a August 2026 one, or inventing a blended index to fill the gap, would make the total look more precise and be less true. Most cost-of-living calculators do exactly that and do not say so.
So read the result as what it is: the two largest costs that actually move when you move, measured properly. The rest of your budget travels with you more than people expect.
Rent is the cost that really moves
Across the places on this list the gap between the dearest and the cheapest is £1,638.00 a month: London at £2,332.00 against Hull at £694.00. That is £19,656 a year of difference before a single other price is compared, which is why a rent-and-tax comparison gets you most of the way to an honest answer. For scale, the UK average was £1,400.00, and rents are not one market: England averaged £1,459.00, Scotland £1,013.00 and Wales £846.00.
Moving to Scotland changes your tax, not just your rent
This is the part a UK comparison has to get right and most miss. Scotland sets its own income tax bands, so the same salary pays a different amount depending on which side of the border you sleep. On £50,000, a Scottish taxpayer keeps £1,496 less a year than someone on identical pay in England, before rent is counted at all. The gap widens as you earn more.
It can cut either way against rent. Edinburgh rents at £1,415.00 against Manchester at £1,373.00, so the rent gap and the tax gap push in opposite directions and only the arithmetic settles it. That is what the calculator does. Our Scottish income tax calculator breaks the tax side down band by band.
Why Edinburgh is called Lothian in the data
ONS publishes Scottish rents by broad rental market area rather than council area, so the figure covering Edinburgh is published as Lothian and the one covering Glasgow as Greater Glasgow. The calculator shows the city name people search for and keeps the published area name beside it, because quietly relabelling Lothian as Edinburgh would be a figure we could not point you at. Northern Ireland is missing from the city calculator because ONS publishes it quarterly, so it would be three months staler than everything next to it.
What this calculator assumes
- A standard tax code, no pension, no student loan. All three change your take-home in both cities at once, so they move the two columns together and barely touch the gap. Use the main take-home calculator for your exact figure.
- Average rent, not your rent. An average includes every let in the area, new and renewed, central and edge. Your own search will land either side of it.
- Council tax is not counted. It varies by band and authority, and the band depends on the specific property, so a city-level average would be a guess dressed as a figure.
- Healthcare is not a line. Worth saying because American cost-of-living tools carry one and readers arrive expecting it. The NHS is funded from the National Insurance and tax already in the calculation.
Sources
- Rent: ONS Price Index of Private Rents, UK, August 2026 figures, released 16 September 2026. Checked 17 September 2026.
- Tax and National Insurance: 2026/27 rates, checked against gov.uk on 28 August 2026. See the rate tables.
How to use the cost of living calculator
- 1
Enter the salary you have now, or the one you are being offered.
- 2
Pick where you live and where you are moving to.
- 3
Set the property size, because the gap between cities is not the same on a one-bed as on a three-bed.
- 4
Read the equivalent salary: what the new city would have to pay to leave you the same money after tax and rent.
When should you use the cost of living calculator?
Use it when a job in another city is on the table and you need to know whether the bigger number is actually bigger.
You have an offer in another city
A rise that does not cover the rent gap is a pay cut with extra steps.
You are moving to or from Scotland
Scottish income tax bands differ, so the same salary pays a different amount across the border.
You are deciding where to look for work
The ranking shows where the salary you already earn would go furthest.
You are negotiating a relocation package
The equivalent salary is the number to put in front of them, and it is arithmetic rather than opinion.
Where to go next
- Scottish income tax calculatorTo price the tax side of a cross-border move.Open
- Mortgage calculatorTo test the take-home against a payment instead of rent.Open
- Salary comparison calculatorTo compare two offers without the location question.Open
- Household income calculatorTo run the same move on two salaries.Open
All 51 calculators share one tested engine, so a figure from the cost of living calculator agrees with every other page here. See the full calculator index or the pay and tax guides.
by Hadi