Private Rental Market Valued At £1.4 Trillion In Current Market Conditions

Published on

The latest research by nationwide Buy-to-Let specialist, Sequre Property Investment, estimates that the current bricks and mortar value of the UK’s private rental sector sits at almost £1.4trillion pounds.

Get The Full Walter Schloss Series in PDF

Get the entire 10-part series on Walter Schloss in PDF. Save it to your desktop, read it on your tablet, or email to your colleagues.

Q2 2021 hedge fund letters, conferences and more

The Largest Private Rental Market

Sequre Property Investment compiled data on the number of current private rented dwellings across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, before looking at the total value of these rental portfolios based on current property values.

There are an estimated 5.5m privately rented homes across the UK, accounting for 19% of the entire property market. With the current average UK house price now at a giddy £254,624, this puts the PRS bricks and mortar value as high as £1.4trn.

England is home to by far the largest private rental market with 4.8m homes within the sector. This places the total value of the English rental market at £1.3trn based on the current average house price of £271,434.

London accounts for a notable 40% of this total market value, with the 1,042,000 rental homes located in the capital valued at nearly £519bn alone.

The South East (£234bn) and the East of England (£154bn) are also home to some of the most valuable rental markets, with rental stock in each region estimated to be worth more than £150bn.

Outside of England, Scotland ranks as the second most valuable rental market from a property standpoint, with the 371,000 privately rented homes worth nearly £64bn on the market today.

In Wales, this current rental market value stands just shy of £38bn, with the Northern Irish private rental market valued at nearly £18bn.

The Backbone Of The UK Housing Sector

Sales Director at Sequre Property Investment, Daniel Jackson, commented:

“The private rental market is the backbone of the UK housing sector and plays an incredibly important role in providing homes for those that are unable to overcome the financial hurdles associated with homeownership.

Despite this, we’ve seen a number of legislative changes implemented to deter landlords from the sector by a government that clearly has no idea what they are doing.

While it may only account for 19% of the total market, reducing the size of the sector would leave many struggling to find an alternative option with regard to their living arrangements.”

Table shows the estimated worth of the dwellings within the private rental sector based on the number of dwellings and the current market value of a home in each nation or region.

Location All dwellings Private rented Private rented as a % of all Average Property Value Total est value
United Kingdom 29,559,777 5,493,830 18.60% £254,624 £1,398,860,363,632
England 24,658,000 4,799,000 19.50% £271,434 £1,302,611,145,489
Scotland 2,650,000 371,000 14.00% £171,448 £63,607,184,256
Wales 1,437,567 204,955 14.30% £184,297 £37,772,604,137
Northern Ireland 814,210 118,875 14.60% £149,178 £17,733,512,868
London 3,634,000 1,042,000 28.70% £497,948 £518,861,773,174
South East 3,985,000 670,000 16.80% £350,016 £234,510,389,824
East of England 2,733,000 497,000 18.20% £310,200 £154,169,527,431
South West 2,604,000 506,000 19.40% £277,603 £140,466,965,340
North West 3,334,000 556,000 16.70% £189,245 £105,220,424,552
West Midlands region 2,537,000 451,000 17.80% £219,793 £99,126,788,132
Yorkshire and the Humber 2,461,000 482,000 19.60% £181,856 £87,654,406,816
East Midlands 2,124,000 391,000 18.40% £216,077 £84,486,121,936
North East 1,246,000 203,000 16.30% £143,129 £29,055,143,233

Average house prices souced from the Gov.uk - UK house Price Index (May 2021 - latest available)

Dwellings stock and tenure sourced from Gov.uk, Gov.wales, NRS Scotland and Gov.scot, NISRA and finance-NI-gov.uk


  • Sequre Property Investment is a leading nationwide Build to Let specialist in the UK.
  • Founded in 2013, the company has sold over 3,000 buy to let properties worth over £300,000,000.
  • Sequre’s focus is the provision of high-income producing, turnkey, discounted buy-to-let property investments in a number of major UK cities.
  • The company has experienced tremendous annual growth, reporting consistently high increases in turnover year-on-year.
  • Daniel is the Sales Director at Sequre and has over 20 years’ experience in the property sector mainly in the North as well as 3 years working on the BBC’s relocation of staff from London to Media City.
  • He has been with Sequre since they started in 2013 and has worked with some of the country’s largest housing providers sourcing deals for investors.
  • Find out more at https://sequre.co.uk/about-us/