Landlords may traditionally see London as the place where the highest rents are charged, but new data shows prices in commuter town are rising seven times faster than in the capital.

Flatshare website Spareroom’s rental index for the first quarter of 2016 showed that monthly room rents in Luton and Swindon have gone up 14% and 13% respectively in the past year.

Luton tenants now pay on average £446 while in Swindon they pay £455 a month.

This compares with a 1.63% rise in London to £747.

London does still have the highest rents, but tenants in Twickenham and Esher can also expect to pay £647 and £629 a month respectively.

The lowest rents were found in Belfast at £278 a month followed by £307 in Bradford.

The south-east of England has seen the biggest increases in the first quarter at 6.59% year-on-year to £485 while the south-west has seen rents go up 6.42% to £431.

The website lists 341,148 properties with rooms to rent. Belfast and Harlow were named as the most sought after areas, with nine people searching per room available on the website.