Average tenancy deposit now stands at £1,139

The average tenancy deposit paid by tenants in Britain now stands at £1,139, fresh analysis from Ome, part of Hamilton Fraser, shows.  

The letting deposit replacement scheme reports that the amount of money tenants are now paying in a rental deposit is 5% higher than the £1,088 paid in 2014.

When looking at the cost of a deposit compared to the inflation of other everyday costs, the figures show that deposits have increased at a lower rate than many other costs of living. 

The cost of a basic TV package, such as Sky or Virgin, for instance, has increased from an average of £22 to £28 in the last five years, the largest increase at 26%.

While the cost of renting has increased, it’s the cost of buying a home that has seen the second largest increase in the last five years, up 24% to the current average residential property price of £231,265.

Matthew Hooker, co-founder of Ome, said: “The rental sector has received a fair share of negative press in its time and much of this has been focussed around the traditional deposit and the sums charged by agents at the start of a tenancy in order for a tenant to secure a property.

“However, with the recent Tenant Fee Act shining a light on the fees charged by traditional letting agents, it’s interesting to see that in relative terms, the increase in the value of tenant deposits is actually smaller than the increase seen in our TV packages, mobile contracts, Big Macs, and even the growth in the average UK salary.

“So it would seem that it is the cost of living within a property itself that is putting the greatest financial squeeze on the nation’s tenants, with the actual deposit only proving a problem for those unable to accumulate the large initial sum, or finding themselves short for other areas of life once they have.

“Of course, many of these other costs are either small or provide the option to pay in installments with the deposit being the last major cost that can’t be widely tackled in bite sized chunks. That’s why we’ve seen a number of deposit alternatives enter the market in order to provide this choice and allow tenants to stay on top of the climbing costs elsewhere in life, by opting to pay their rental deposit on a more manageable monthly basis.”

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