Tenants under pressure, JFR report favours rent control

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation’s latest housing market report highlights the affordability issues facing tenants. 

Overview

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation's April 2026 briefing, Blower, R. Elliott, J. Worsdale, R. (2026). Under pressure: the affordability challenges facing private renters, effectively calls for rent control.

The report is based on extensive research and sets out a detailed picture of rental affordability in the UK. It concludes that, while headline rent inflation has recently slowed, this offers little comfort to tenants. That’s because the underlying affordability crisis, it says, “runs far deeper” than short-term variations in rents.

Rents too high for decades

The report states that before rent deregulation in the late 1970s, (prior to the introduction of the Shorthold tenancy in the 1988 Housing Act) private renters would typically spend around 11 per cent of their household income on rent. 

Contrast that with today and that figure - this study finds – is around 34 per cent, a figure that has changed little over the last decade. In London, says the report, the figure is even more extreme, at almost half of renters’ incomes – at 46 per cent.

The ups and downs and spikes in rent levels in the UK are not representative of the underlying trend, the report argues. Since the 2008 financial crisis, the study shows that rents have broadly tracked wages. They have risen at a rate which is slightly below overall inflation. In real terms therefore, rents have remained relatively flat.

From rent control to market rents 

The affordability issue facing today’s tenants, the report argues, is “structural and persistent”. The shift to market rents means they have settled at a higher level relative to incomes following deregulation. And perhaps unsurprisingly, they have stayed there. 

Recent spikes in rent price inflation, when they peaked at an 8.7 per cent increase in 2024, made the situation more acute for tenants, but argues the report, the foundation was already broken.

OBR forecasts show that rents will now continue rising faster than CPI inflation through to 2030. Again, this will broadly track real wage growth. For tenants, it means there will be no relief from rent pressures. Any increases in tenants’ wages will therefore be absorbed by rent increases, rather than contributing to an increase in their standard of living. 

People “trapped” in the private rented sector

The JRF report produces some key statistics for the PRS. One important dimension the report highlights is the fact that far more people are now renting longer and are exposed to higher costs than in previous decades.  

Between 2000 and 2020, the PRS grew by 2.7 million homes, now accounting for around a fifth (20 per cent) of all housing stock in England and Wales. At the same time, owner-occupation among 20–34-year-olds fell some 17 per cent points, that is the change since 2000. It now stands at just 27 per cent, while social housing shrunk from 31 per cent of the total housing stock in 1980 to 17 per cent in 2020.

The result of this shift in the structure of the housing market is, many more households are renting, particularly those on lower incomes, who would previously have been in social housing. 

Many would have been on their way to private ownership, but now, as things are, they are stuck paying market rents indefinitely, concludes the report. Notably, the report points out that 24 per cent of children in England now live in the private rented sector. 

That’s up from 8 per cent in 2000. Now, around 28 per cent of private renting families with children report that they cannot comfortably afford their housing costs. 40 per cent say they are worried they might have to move within the year.

The JRF report claims that the UK stands out badly against international renting statistics. OECD data shows that 23 per cent of UK private renters spend more than 40 per cent of their income on rent. That’s a higher proportion than any other OECD country measured by the JRF study.

Low-income tenants 

The affordability situation, JRF finds, is especially acute for those on lower incomes. Renters in the bottom income quintile (the bottom 20 per cent or one-fifth) spend a median (middle or midpoint) of 50 per cent of their household income on rent, with some even paying up to 63 per cent. Around 40 per cent of those in the bottom 40 per cent of incomes told the JRF study they have difficulty covering their housing costs.

Housing Benefit and Universal Credit are there to help, but the report finds significant gaps in coverage. Among those on low-income, and renters with high housing costs, more of these households report receiving no support than those that do. 

JRF says that this is partly because some tenants are ineligible (due to earnings, wealth or immigration status), and partly because some eligible households don't claim.

Even where support is being received, it often falls short to cover actual rents, says the report. By November 2025, the Local Housing Allowance (LHA) did not cover the rent for over half of all Universal Credit recipients in England. That’s partly because of LHA rates being frozen in 2024 at September 2023 levels.

Since then, average rents have risen by a further 16 per cent. Research by Crisis and Health Equals finds that by late 2024, only 2.5 per cent of private rented homes listed in England were affordable at LHA rates, that’s despite LHA rates officially being pegged to the 30th percentile of local rents.

The JRF report observes that even if LHA were reset to median local rents, an estimated 450,000 low-income, high-cost households would still face a shortfall.

Housing subsidies eroded 

Historically, (pre-deregulation) there were three mechanisms keeping rents affordable for lower-income households according to JRF. There were (1) cash benefits, (2) social housing supply, and (3) private rent regulation (effectively, rent control). 

However, since 1979, two of those three have been eliminated. One estimate, says JRF, suggests that if all three had remained at their 1979 proportions, there would be an additional £14 billion of subsidy in the housing system today.

Three “pinch points”

Although average rent increases over time look modest, the JRF report identifies three instances when tenants most feel affordability pressures:

1 – Rent increases are lumpy, they are not imposed every single year for most tenants. Survey data collected for the JRL study suggests that historically only about one-quarter of landlords raised rents annually, though this proportion jumped to 56 per cent in 2024 amid rising costs. This p[proportion is likely to rise more with the introduction of the Renters’ Rights Act. 

Many private landlords often hold down rents for years and then try to raise them to catch up with market levels at some point in the future. If this happens the increases may be large, but tenants often don’t appreciate the fact they’ve had discounted rents over an extended period. 

The report says that a median rise of 8 per cent was imposed by landlords in 2024, against CPI of 2.5 per cent. One in ten landlords reportedly raised catch up rents by more than 20 per cent.

2 - Annual increases affected a significant minority. While the majority don't face annual increases, there’s a meaningful minority who do. Some will even experience increases that go beyond both earnings growth and benefit uprating. This can result in tight budgets moving to unaffordability.

3 – House moves. This is where tenants are most vulnerable and the biggest shocks come. Landlords are most likely to bring rents to market levels or thereabouts at the start of a new tenancy, rather than within one. This metric will probably change with the introduction of the RRA as it’s then a continuous tenancy which strongly suggests 12 monthly increases.

According to JRF, around two-thirds of landlords raised rents at re-let in 2024. The median increase was 11 per cent, while one-quarter imposed rises of 20 per cent or more. For those tenants who are forced to move, Shelter has estimated that around 40 per cent of tenant moves are forced moves, costing on average £670 in unrecoverable costs. 

More than half of all renters (56 per cent), according to a Shelter/YouGov survey, said they could not afford a rent increase of 10 per cent or more. A quarter said they could not pay anything more without cutting out essentials or paying bills.

The Renters' Rights Act 

The report acknowledges that the RRA “represents meaningful progress” on tenant security of tenure, banning Section 21 no-fault evictions, limiting upfront rent demands, banning bidding wars, and restricting rent increases to once a year. These, the report says, are genuine protections, but don’t go far enough.

It says nothing about the possibility of more annual rent increases putting additional pressure on tenants’ budgets.

The report argues the RRA “stops short of addressing the fundamental affordability problem”. Landlords, it says, can still raise rents to market levels annually. And they probably will.

In high-demand areas, says JRF, it means above-inflation increases will remain entirely legal - in other words, a call for some form of rent control. The tribunal system, it says, gives tenants a mechanism to challenge above-market rises, but its practical effectiveness remains uncertain.

It claims there is a proposed £200 fee to access the tribunal - something not widely known before now - could deter many tenants from using it. Generation Rent claims that the imposition of a fee would roughly halve the number of renters willing to bring a challenge to their rent increase.

Policy gap

JRF concludes in the report that a meaningful improvement in rental affordability will need action on multiple fronts. In effect Rent Control to bring down rents relative to incomes.

JRF suggests expanding LHA with a permanent link to local rent levels, This, it claims, will smooth the unpredictability of rent increases. But, it says, “no single lever — and certainly not the benefit system alone — is sufficient.”

JRF also suggests “rebuilding social housing supply” to reduce the number of households exposed to private market rents, with little or no mention of the effect government policy is having on the supply of private rented housing, and landlords’ livelihoods.  

JRF is due to publish an interim report in May setting out specific policy recommendations.

[Main image credit: RDNE Stock Project]