Rentaroof Birmingham Rental Market  Report – Q2 2026

Key Takeaways

• The average monthly rent in Birmingham stood at £926 in Q2 2026, representing a 5.2% year-on-year decrease from £977 in Q2 2025. This coincided with rooms making up a larger share of available rental properties.
• Rental supply reached 6,862 rental properties in Q2 2026, based on Rentaroof.co.uk data.
• All property types recorded year-on-year rental price growth, with flats seeing the strongest increase of 3.0% to an average monthly rent of £1,004.
• The average time a rental property remained on the market fell to 41 days in Q2 2026, down from 43 days a year earlier. This 4.7% decrease indicates slightly faster property turnover.
• Student rental properties accounted for 2,765 properties, representing 40.3% of Birmingham’s total rental supply in Q2 2026. This highlights the importance of the student market within the city’s rental sector.

Rental Prices in Birmingham

The average monthly rent in Birmingham was £926 in Q2 2026, a year-on-year decrease of 5.2% from £977 in Q2 2025. This headline decline does not reflect falling prices within the market: all three property types recorded rent growth over the same period. The decrease is instead a composition effect. Rooms accounted for 27.5% of advertised rental properties in Q2 2026, compared with 15.2% a year earlier. Because rooms are the lowest-priced segment, their larger share pulls the city-wide average down even as prices within every segment rise.

This composition effect is corroborated by external data. The ONS Price Index of Private Rents, which measures achieved rents across the entire stock of privately rented properties and is therefore not affected by shifts in the mix of newly advertised homes, shows that average private rents in Birmingham increased by 3.0% year-on-year, from £1,059 to £1,090 in June 2026, a rise below the West Midlands average of 4.4%. This is in line with the segment-level growth recorded in this report (+0.9% to +3.0%). The difference between the two headline figures therefore reflects the changing composition of advertised properties, not a difference in the underlying direction of rental prices in Birmingham.

Rental Prices by Property Type

Flats recorded the strongest growth at +3.0% and remain the dominant property type by volume, making them the primary driver of segment-level price development in Birmingham. Rooms rose 2.9% to £536; the near-parallel growth of the two largest segments indicates that price pressure is present across both the affordable and mid-market ends of the city. Houses grew 0.9% to £1,398, retaining their position as the highest-priced segment; the £862 spread between houses and rooms illustrates the breadth of Birmingham's rental market. The defining structural shift of the quarter is the larger share of rooms within the advertised supply, which explains why the city-wide average declined while every individual segment rose.

Rental Prices by District

Digbeth recorded the strongest growth of any major district at +11.5%, followed by Edgbaston at +9.6% and the Jewellery Quarter at +6.9%. The rise in Digbeth coincided with a sharp contraction in its supply, which roughly halved compared with Q2 2025, consistent with tightening conditions in this central district. Together, these three centrally located districts represent the growth engine of Birmingham's rental market this quarter, all priced £275 or more above the city-wide average.

Ladywood (-0.8%) and Selly Oak (-0.5%) were broadly stable. Selly Oak stands out structurally: it is both the largest district by volume, with 864 rental properties representing 12.6% of the entire city's supply, and the most affordable major district at £674, a price level £252 below the city average. Around seven in ten of its rental properties are student accommodations, anchoring the affordable end of the Birmingham market.

Outside the five largest districts, several mid-sized districts recorded double-digit declines: Acocks Green (-18.7%), Erdington (-18.5%), Stockland Green (-18.4%), Moseley (-17.5%), Yardley (-17.4%) and Bournbrook (-14.6%). The resulting divergence, between rising central districts and softening suburban and student-oriented districts, was the defining geographic pattern of the quarter.

Supply Overview

The dataset recorded 6,862 rental properties across Birmingham during Q2 2026, representing the overall level of rental supply during the quarter. Flats form the largest segment with 4,096 rental properties (59.7% of the total), followed by rooms with 1,885 (27.5%) and houses with 881 (12.8%).

Supply in Birmingham shows a distinctive structure: the city's largest concentration of rental properties is found in its most affordable major district. Selly Oak alone accounts for 864 rental properties, or 12.6% of the entire city's supply, at an average rent of £674. Ladywood and the Jewellery Quarter, both centrally located and priced above the city average, complete the top three. Together, these districts represent 31.2% of total supply. The contrast between Selly Oak's high-volume, low-price profile and the premium pricing of the central districts gives tenants a wide span of options: from £629 in Bournbrook and £674 in Selly Oak at the affordable end to £1,238 in Digbeth at the top of the market.

Student Rental Accommodation

Student rental accommodation accounts for 40.3% of Birmingham's total rental supply in Q2 2026, reflecting the city’s large student population. Selly Oak contains by far the largest share, with 617 properties representing 22.3% of the city's student rental supply; around seven in ten rental properties in the district are student accommodations. Neighbouring Bournbrook follows with 262 properties (9.5%). Around eight in ten rental properties in the district are aimed at students. Ladywood (202 properties; 7.3%) adds a central component to the student market. Together, these three districts account for 1,081 of Birmingham's 2,765 student rental properties, or 39.1% of the city's student rental supply, with a clear concentration in the south-west of the city around Selly Oak and Bournbrook.

Rental Property Turnover

The average time on market in Birmingham decreased from 43 days in Q2 2025 to 41 days in Q2 2026, a reduction of 4.7% year-on-year. Properties are being let slightly faster than a year ago, indicating that demand has at least kept pace with the available supply.

Rental Property Days on Market by District

The fastest-moving districts are Acocks Green (27 days), Hockley Port (28 days) and the Jewellery Quarter (31 days), where properties let in around a month or less. Notably, Acocks Green combines the fastest absorption in the city with one of the steepest rent declines (-18.7%), indicating that its lower price point is drawing rapid tenant uptake.

At the other end, Selly Oak (78 days) and Bournbrook (82 days) record times on market roughly double the city average. This pattern is closely tied to their student profiles: with seven to eight in ten rental properties classified as student accommodations, properties in these districts are typically advertised well ahead of the academic year, extending the recorded time online without necessarily indicating weak demand. Excluding these two districts, the city-wide average falls to 33 days. Bournville (52 days) also sits above the average. Across all districts, including the slowest-moving, the market remains functional, with the student letting cycle rather than an absence of demand explaining the longest advertising periods.

Rental Market Outlook

The Q2 2026 data presents three aligned indicators:

• All three property types recorded year-on-year rent growth, led by flats (+3.0%); the city-wide average declined 5.2% to £926 as rooms made up a larger share of rental properties.
• Growth was concentrated in central districts, with Digbeth (+11.5%), Edgbaston (+9.6%) and the Jewellery Quarter (+6.9%) leading price development.
• Average days on market decreased from 43 to 41 days, indicating slightly faster property turnover.

Together, these describe a market in which prices within every segment are rising and properties are letting faster, conditions that are becoming more competitive for prospective tenants than in the same period last year. The city-wide average rent is an imperfect summary of the quarter: read in isolation it suggests a softening market, whereas the segment-level data shows the opposite.

Within the overall picture, growth is concentrated in the central districts: Digbeth (+11.5%), Edgbaston (+9.6%) and the Jewellery Quarter (+6.9%) are driving price development, while suburban districts including Acocks Green (-18.7%), Erdington (-18.5%) and Moseley (-17.5%) are moving against the trend. Bournbrook combines a 14.6% rent decline with the slowest absorption in the city (82 days), although the student letting cycle plays a significant role in that figure. The student segment, at 40.3% of total supply, is a defining structural component of Birmingham's rental market, concentrated in the south-west around Selly Oak and Bournbrook.

Based on the current indicators, the developments to monitor in the coming quarter are whether rent declines of more than 10% in suburban districts slow down, whether the central districts sustain their pace of growth, and how the composition of the advertised supply develops.

Methodology & About Rentaroof

Data & Methodology

This report is based on an analysis of advertised rental properties sourced from Rentaroof and collected during the Q2 2026 reporting period. The analysis covers rental properties across Birmingham and focuses on three key market indicators: asking rents, rental supply and time on market. Properties are classified as rented or let based on rental property advertisements that were removed from the market during the reporting period. Year-on-year comparisons of rental prices and time on market are calculated against an identically filtered extraction for Q2 2025. The classification of property types and the identification of rooms in the source data were refined between the two reporting periods; year-on-year comparisons of supply volumes and segment counts are therefore not presented.

Student rental accommodations are identified using information contained within the original property advertisements. Rental properties are classified as student accommodations where letting agents explicitly market the property towards students, or where the description indicates student suitability through a combination of characteristics, including shared accommodation (such as rooms or shared flats) and references to nearby universities or other higher education institutions. 

About Rentaroof

Rentaroof is an independent rental platform for the UK housing market. By aggregating listings across the country, the platform provides one of the most comprehensive real-time overviews of available rental properties in the UK.

Through our quarterly market reports, Rentaroof delivers independent, data-driven analysis of rental pricing, supply and market dynamics across major UK cities, offering a transparent perspective for tenants, landlords, journalists and housing professionals.

Rentaroof is part of Treehouse, the company behind Huurwoningen.nl & Pararius, known as the leading rental platforms in the Netherlands. Treehouse brings over two decades of housing market expertise to the UK, Toitpourtoi in France, and the German rental platform Immomiet, combining platform technology with market intelligence to make renting more transparent.

Rentaroof Market Report by: Rohan Talwar, Market Researcher

The information and data presented in this report were accurate at the time of publication, and every effort has been made to ensure their reliability. However, no reliance should be placed on the contents of this report as a sole basis for decision-making. Rentaroof.co.uk and its associated parties make no representations or warranties, express or implied, regarding the completeness, accuracy, or suitability of the information provided, and accept no liability for any decisions made or actions taken based on this content.