More than half (56%) of UK renters want to move but are staying put, according to flatshare site SpareRoom. 

Flatsharers aged 40+ are more likely to be flathugging: 61% are staying in their current rental despite wanting to move compared to 52% of under 40s.

The top reason flatsharers aren’t moving is that available housing is out of budget (73%). Over the past five years, average room rents in the UK have risen by 28% to a record high of £753 per month and in London by 37% to £995 per month.

Other barriers to moving include a shortage of places available to rent (44%), and competition for rooms being too high (32%). In Q3 2025, four people were searching for every room available to rent in the UK. 

Close to half (45%) of renters have actively avoided communicating with landlords or agents in the past year about issues with their rental properties, largely for fear of triggering rent increases, and meaning potentially dangerous issues are going unchecked.

When asked why they’d avoided contact with their landlord or agent, the top reason was the fear of triggering a rent increase (58%). 

In second place (42%) was the feeling their landlord or agent either wouldn’t respond or help fix the issue. Third was the want to ‘avoid confrontation’ (35%), followed by the fear of triggering an eviction (31%) in fourth place.

This isn’t just stalling the mobility of renters, says SpareRoom: there are also knock-on effects for careers and the broader economy too. More than six in 10 (61%) either strongly agreed or agreed that the rental market had had a negative effect on their career progression. 

Close to a fifth (19%) of renters said that, in the past two years, they’d turned down a job offer to avoid having to look for a new place to rent. 

Of these respondents, 51% had to forgo higher pay, 40% missed out on a better work-life balance, and 35% had to decline a promotion or another career progression opportunity.