There are over 25,000 estate agency “shops” in the UK, new figures from the Office for National Statistics have revealed.

As of last year, it calculates there were 25,485 – up from 22,020 in 2010 and a rise of 15.7%.

On average there is one estate agency branch for every 2,555 people in the UK.

However, there are huge variations.

Westminster has the most agents per head of population, with one for every 221 people living in the borough.

In contrast, Bolsover in Derbyshire has the least number of estate agents per head of population – just one for every 15,556.

In some areas, the number of agents has bounced up – for example, in Bristol the number rose by one-third between 2010 and 2015, while in Cambridgeshire the number has increased by one fifth.