Room to grow: what Zoopla's latest rent data means for landlords in Stoke-on-Trent and Crewe

Zoopla's Rental Market Report for June 2026 makes one thing clear: rents are still climbing across the UK, just not as fast as they were. Annual growth has slowed slightly to 2.1%, down from 2.2% in 2025. But that headline figure hides a lot of local variation — and for landlords in and around Stoke-on-Trent, the detail is where the opportunity lies.

Stoke-on-Trent: still one of the cheapest cities, but catching up

According to Zoopla, Stoke-on-Trent has the lowest average rent in the whole West Midlands region, at £753 per calendar month, with annual growth of 2.3%. That's roughly in line with the national average — but it's worth reading alongside the report's wider observation that the cheaper the rent, the faster it tends to rise. Areas like Barrow-in-Furness (up 23.7% on rents of £682 pcm) and Belfast (up 8.1%) show what can happen once cheaper markets start attracting displaced renters priced out of pricier neighbours.

The report specifically calls out this dynamic for our region: with rents in Birmingham, Solihull, Warwick and Stratford-upon-Avon routinely topping £1,000 pcm, tenants are increasingly looking further afield — and Stoke-on-Trent is named as one of the outlying areas benefiting from that spillover.

The standout figure locally is actually Staffordshire Moorlands, just next door, where rents are rising at 6.6% — roughly three times the national rate. That's a strong signal that demand in the wider Stoke conurbation is building, even if the city centre figures haven't caught up yet.

Where does that leave Crewe?

Zoopla's breakdown doesn't list Cheshire East or Crewe individually in this report, so we can't quote a precise local growth figure. But Crewe sits within the North West region, where the report highlights a similar pattern to Stoke: the cheapest local authorities (Burnley, Pendle) are seeing above-average growth, while nearby cities such as Manchester continue to pull rents upward across the wider area. Crewe's position as an affordable commuter town within reach of Manchester, Stoke and the Cheshire employment corridors puts it squarely in the kind of location this report says is absorbing overflow demand from pricier neighbours — even without a headline number to prove it yet.

Why this matters under the Renters' Rights Act

The timing of this data matters as much as the numbers themselves. The Renters' Rights Act now limits rent increases in England to once per year, and any rise has to reflect open-market value — tenants can, and increasingly will, challenge increases they think are unfair. Should a case go to tribunal, decisions are based on comparable local rents and recently agreed tenancies.

That makes local, evidence-based valuations essential. A landlord in Stoke-on-Trent who hasn't reviewed their rent against current market data may well be leaving money on the table, particularly given how fast Staffordshire Moorlands is moving. Equally, any increase needs to be defensible with real comparables, not guesswork — especially in areas like Crewe where published local-authority data is thinner on the ground.

This is exactly the kind of process landlords shouldn't have to navigate alone. At Best Nest, we run regular analysis across our entire rent roll, benchmarking every property against current local market data rather than waiting for a renewal date to prompt a review. Where the evidence supports it, we proactively flag rental increase opportunities to landlords, so nobody is left under-renting simply because nobody got round to checking.

We also handle the legal side in full: serving the correct statutory notice under the Renters' Rights Act's new once-a-year rule, making sure any proposed increase is properly evidenced against open-market comparables, and managing the process end-to-end if a tenant chooses to challenge it at tribunal. Landlords get the uplift without the administrative or legal risk of getting the process wrong.

The takeaway for landlords

• Stoke-on-Trent rents remain low relative to the wider West Midlands, but the region around it — Staffordshire Moorlands especially — is heating up fast.
• Overspill demand from pricier cities is a genuine driver of growth in affordable areas, and Stoke is named directly as one of the beneficiaries.
• Crewe isn't separately tracked in this report, but its profile — affordable, well-connected, neighbouring stronger-growth areas — fits the pattern Zoopla describes elsewhere.
• With annual rent reviews now the norm under the Renters' Rights Act, having solid local comparables is no longer optional — it's what stands up at tribunal.

If you're a landlord with property in either area and haven't reviewed your rent in the last twelve months, now's a sensible time to check it against current market levels — and if you'd rather leave the analysis, the notices and the legal process to us, that's exactly what we're here for.

Source: Zoopla, "Is there room for your landlord clients to increase rents?", 18 August 2026, Rental Market Report June 2026.