Cost of Living Comparison Calculator
Compare everyday goods and services prices between UK regions, and see roughly what income you’d need to match your current standard of living.
Start here
How to use this calculator
This compares everyday goods and services prices only — it does not include housing, rent, mortgages or council tax. See the housing section below for that.
Enter your income
What you currently earn, so we can scale it by the price difference between the two regions.
Pick where you live now
Choose your current UK region or nation.
Pick where you’re comparing to
See the price difference and roughly what income there would match your current spending power.
The data
Where this comes from — and its limits
This calculator uses the ONS’s Relative Regional Consumer Price Levels (RRCPLs) — the only regional price-level comparison the ONS has ever published for the UK. It was released once, in March 2018, using 2016 price-survey data, as an “Experimental Statistic,” and hasn’t been repeated since. The ONS separately investigated building a full regional inflation index and concluded in 2017 that regional data wasn’t reliable enough to publish regularly — so, unlike some other countries, there is currently no official, up-to-date UK regional cost-of-living index.
The RRCPL index covers around 539 everyday items across food, clothing, household goods, transport, recreation, and restaurants and hotels. It explicitly excludes owner-occupied housing costs, mortgage interest, rent, Council Tax, health and education. It’s also only available at broad region level — not city by city, so “North West” covers Manchester, Liverpool and everywhere else in the region equally.
Because of this, treat the number above as a starting point for everyday spending, not a complete cost-of-living figure — housing is often the single biggest cost difference between UK regions and isn’t included here at all.
Housing
What about rent and housing costs?
Housing is usually the biggest driver of cost-of-living differences in the UK, and it isn’t part of the index above. The ONS’s current private rental market data (April 2026) shows just how large that gap can be: average UK rent was £1,381 a month, ranging from £2,290 in London (the highest) down to £776 in the North East (the lowest) — a difference of almost three times. By nation, average rent was £1,438 in England, £1,019 in Scotland, £877 in Northern Ireland (February 2026) and £834 in Wales.
The ONS doesn’t currently publish average rent broken down for every English region individually, only for London and the North East specifically, alongside the four UK nations — so we can’t responsibly show a full 12-region rent table here without inventing numbers that were never published. If you’re comparing two specific areas, it’s worth checking current rental listings for both directly.
Questions
Common questions
Why doesn’t this include housing costs?
Because the ONS’s regional price index specifically excludes housing, mortgage interest, rent and Council Tax — it only measures everyday goods and services. We’ve kept the calculator honest to what the data actually covers rather than blending in estimated housing figures.
Is this data up to date?
No — it’s from 2016, published in 2018, and the ONS has not repeated the exercise since, having concluded that reliable regional price data is hard to produce regularly. It’s the most recent official UK regional price comparison that exists, but it isn’t current.
Can I compare specific cities, like Manchester vs Leeds?
Not directly — the ONS data is only published at broad region level (e.g. “North West” or “Yorkshire and the Humber”), not city by city. Manchester and Liverpool, for example, both use the North West figure.
Why might my real cost of living differ from this estimate?
Housing costs (the biggest factor for most people), personal spending habits, family size, and how recently prices have changed in your specific area can all matter more than this broad regional average. Use this as a general starting point, not a precise personal budget.
Where these figures come from. Relative Regional Consumer Price Levels (RRCPLs), UK, 2016 (published 2018) and the ONS Private rent and house prices, UK bulletin, April 2026 edition, both from the Office for National Statistics. Figures checked on 25 September 2026.
Relative regional consumer price levels, UK: 2016 (ONS) · Private rent and house prices, UK (ONS) · Rent Affordability Calculator
How we calculate · Editorial policy. This is general information, not financial advice.