Excluding London, the annual rate of rental increase across the UK was higher at the end of March than it has been for over four years.

This is the conclusion of Zoopla’s latest quarterly UK Rental market Report, published this week.

Outside London there is strong rental demand but ‘constrained’ supply, said Zoopla. Rents were up 3 per cent on the year. In Wales rents were up 3.8 per cent, in the North East 5.5 per cent, in the South West 5.3 per cent, and in the East Midlands by 4.8 per cent.

Landlords in many major cities were also able to ask higher rents. Sheffield rents rose 4.7 per cent, Belfast rents by 3.8 per cent, Nottingham by 3.7 per cent, and Bristol by 3.6 per cent.

In Glasgow rents were up by 4.1 per cent, but in Edinburgh down by 3.2 per cent.

Overall, ‘elevated levels of demand amid constrained supply will underpin rental growth in 2021 across the UK’, concluded Zoopla head of research Grainne Gilmore. ‘In large city centre markets, rental demand is building as offices start to re-open, which will ease negative pressure on rents’.