815 fewer student rooms than in July: where Clearing is tightest now

By Tom Okafor · Updated 18 August 2026

I counted the student rooms listed on accommodationforstudents.com, a large listings site, for sixteen university cities on 25 July, and I counted the same sixteen again this morning. Fifteen of them had fewer rooms than three weeks ago: 815 gone in total, close to a tenth of everything that was on the board. The prices on what is left have hardly moved.

The average advertised rent across the sixteen cities is up about 60p a week since July, near enough nothing to a student signing this week. Four of the sixteen even edged down a little. The number of rooms is down across almost all of them.

The towns that emptied fastest

The drop was not even, and it fell hardest on the small campus towns that had least to lose. Exeter went from 147 rooms to 112, down almost a quarter in three weeks. Loughborough dropped from 71 to 58, which in a town that size is thirteen rooms you can no longer chase. Cardiff lost 15%. Newcastle lost a similar share but off a huge base, so it still had close to 1,600 rooms listed this morning and nobody there is short of options. Glasgow was the one city that went the other way, eight rooms up on July.

What the count cannot see

A room count leaves out university halls, and for a Clearing student those are usually the better first move. Most universities keep a block of halls back for late arrivals, and the offer often lands with the place. That queue is a separate application from the private market, and the Clearing housing guide walks through how it works. Ring the university's accommodation office the day you accept and ask two things: whether there is a halls room for a Clearing student starting this September, and what the deadline is. Those halls deadlines run short in Clearing, sometimes only days.

What is left is the top of the market

When the shared houses and cheaper rooms go first, the listings that stay tend to be studios, and a studio is the most expensive way to rent, the one that eats furthest into a maintenance loan already stretched by rent. In Manchester this morning a studio averaged £140 a week more than a room in a shared house. In Southampton the gap was £135, in Bristol £130. Arrive late with no time to hunt and the room you can book on the spot is often a studio near the top of that gap.

The contract can catch you there too. A holding deposit can legally be no more than one week's rent, and it has to come off your first payment if the tenancy goes ahead. Anything above that, dressed up as a fee or an admin charge, is banned by the Tenant Fees Act, and you can claim it back. Most students, relieved to have a room at all, never do.

The order that saves you money

Accept the place first, then ring the accommodation office, and only touch the private listings if halls comes back a no. In a small city, move the same day. In a bigger one you have room to be the awkward one about the deposit before you sign anything. In Loughborough this week that meant fifty-eight rooms for the whole town, thirteen fewer than in July.

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Reviewed 18 Aug 2026 · Editorial standards

Written by

Tom Okafor

Housing Editor. Tom spent three years in shared student houses and once won a deposit dispute he had been told was not worth the paperwork, which is roughly the energy of everything he writes. Tenancies, deposits, bills, landlords, council tax. He leans on Citizens Advice and Shelter rather than vibes. tom@unisorted.co.uk