Private renters are forced to pay ‘stubbornly high’ rents for accommodation with increasingly less floor space per person, new research into the private rented sector has revealed.

Research by the think tank the Resolution Foundation has found that rent levels for new tenancies have risen by more than 10% over the past year.

Annual rents overall for England’s 4.4 million private renting households increased by 3.4% in August 2022 – more than double the average rate of 1.3% seen between 2018 and 2021.

The increasing rent levels has also been accompanied by shrinking floor space, the think tank found.

According to the Resolution Foundation’s findings, the share of non-decent homes in the private sector went from 47% to 23% between 2006 and 2019.

However, there has been a 16% fall in average floor space over the past 20 years, and the proportion of overcrowded households in the private rental sector has more than doubled since 1996-97 – from 3.1% to 6.7% by 2019-20.

Felicia Odamtten, economist at the Resolution Foundation, said: ‘The deal that 21st Century Britain offers private renters is a bad one. Rents have risen and floor space has fallen, with renters losing space equivalent to the size of Nottingham over the past 20 years.

‘With rental prices growing at twice the pace they were two years ago – and hitting double digits for new tenancies – renters are facing considerable financial pressure, even despite the Government’s welcome support with energy bills. This is in part because much of our private housing stock is so poorly insulated.

‘As well as ensuring that landlords hit the target of making all properties energy efficient by 2028, policymakers also need to massively increase the number of new homes being built.’