What is the average rent in Tower Hamlets?

The median monthly rent across Tower Hamlets is £2,396, based on ONS Private Rental Prices data. Individual neighbourhoods vary — see the shortlist above for the cheapest and most desirable areas.

Where is the cheapest place to rent in Tower Hamlets?

The cheapest neighbourhood in Tower Hamlets by estimated median rent is Whitechapel at approximately £2,018/month. The full top-five cheapest list and our methodology are above.

What's the best neighbourhood to live in Tower Hamlets?

By our composite liveability score (which blends safety, transport, schools, rent affordability and EPC), the top-ranked neighbourhood in Tower Hamlets is Mile End West at 72/100. The score is editorial; see /methodology/scoring/liveability for the formula.

Is Tower Hamlets a safe area?

Tower Hamlets has an average safety score of 31/100 across its constituent neighbourhoods (higher is safer). The score is the national percentile rank of police-recorded crimes per 1,000 residents per year, inverted so 100 means the safest 1% of England + Wales.

What is council tax in Tower Hamlets?

The most common council tax band in Tower Hamlets is not yet published, with the Band D annual charge currently around £1,327. Council tax is set at the local authority level so the same banding applies to every postcode within Tower Hamlets.

What is the average salary in Tower Hamlets?

The median annual resident salary in Tower Hamlets is £45,183, per ONS ASHE 2025. This is salary for people who live in Tower Hamlets, not for people who commute in to work there. Workplace median salary is published separately.

What is the average house price in Tower Hamlets?

The average property price in Tower Hamlets is approximately £455,307 according to HM Land Registry's House Price Index. Individual neighbourhoods vary — typically ±20% around this council area median.

What's the rental yield in Tower Hamlets?

Gross rental yield in Tower Hamlets is approximately 6.1% — the council-area level median rent annualised over the council-area level median sale price. Net yield (after agency, void, maintenance and tax) typically runs 30–40% lower.

How long does it take to save a deposit in Tower Hamlets?

Saving a 10% deposit at the council area median sale price on the council area median salary, while putting away 10% of takehome pay each month, takes approximately 5.1 years in Tower Hamlets. Faster if you save more, slower if rents are eating into savings.

Is gigabit broadband available in Tower Hamlets?

100% of premises in Tower Hamlets are gigabit-capable per Ofcom Connected Nations 2025. Coverage is patchier in older terraces and rural fringes — check your specific postcode for service availability.

What's the unemployment rate in Tower Hamlets?

6.7% of 16-64 residents in Tower Hamlets are on the DWP Claimant Count — Universal Credit while seeking work, or Jobseeker's Allowance. That's the live monthly local indicator. It's narrower than the ONS Labour Force Survey "ILO unemployment rate" (which counts anyone actively job-seeking on a separate denominator) and narrower again than Census 2021's "% unemployed" (which is calculated against all 16+ residents and so isn't directly comparable).

How many neighbourhoods are in Tower Hamlets?

Tower Hamlets contains 34 neighbourhood neighbourhoods covering 169 sub-areas (local areas). Browse the full list at the bottom of this page or use the neighbourhood map above to drill into a specific area.

City · London

Living in Tower Hamlets

34 neighbourhoods · 169 sub-areas

Updated May 2026

Where on the UK

Crime vs nat. avg

1.3× nat.

1.3× nat. avg · 132.5 / 1k / yr · #311 of 318 cities

Police.uk crime data · Feb 2026

Good schools

100%

#1 of 296 cities

Ofsted inspections · Feb 2026

Commute to hub

10 min

#12 of 318 cities

DfT Journey Times 2019 · 2019 (programme paused)

Jobs density

1.11

#5 of 318 cities

ONS BRES · 2024

Avg rent

£2,396/mo

+1.8% YoY · #306 of 314 cities

ONS Rent Index (PIPR) · Mar 2026

Council tax

£149/mo

Estimated (Band D)

MHCLG Council Tax Band D · 2026

Section 1 / 8

Neighbourhoods in Tower Hamlets

Tap any row or map polygon to drill into that neighbourhood — hovering on desktop will preview the link before you click. Switch the tab strip above the table to focus on Affordability, Schools, Transport, Safety or Wealth — the columns swap and the default sort follows.

34 neighbourhoods · 169 sub-areas

Rent, scores and YoY change at a glance.


Whitechapel	£2,018	+1.8%	48	27
Bromley-by-Bow East	£2,025	+1.8%	46	16
Poplar West	£2,092	+1.8%	38	24
Poplar Central	£2,105	+1.8%	39	23
Bromley-by-Bow West	£2,122	+1.8%	68	34
Stepney Green	£2,164	+1.8%	41	24
Bow South	£2,211	+1.8%	43	36
Limehouse East	£2,219	+1.8%	20	19
Mudchute	£2,253	+1.8%	17	33
Bethnal Green Central	£2,280	+1.8%	33	23
Tower Hamlets 034	£2,320	+1.8%	58	37
Millwall South	£2,352	+1.8%	48	74
Tower Hamlets 035	£2,356	+1.8%	27	29
Shadwell North	£2,370	+1.8%	40	29
Bow North & Fish Island	£2,390	+1.8%	23	30
Bethnal Green East	£2,394	+1.8%	40	39
Mile End East & Burdett Estate	£2,395	+1.8%	35	27
Poplar Leaside	£2,406	+1.8%	34	23
Bethnal Green South	£2,433	+1.8%	39	5
Limehouse North & Stepney East	£2,442	+1.8%	48	42
Aldgate	£2,447	+1.8%	27	15
Shadwell Basin & Ratcliffe	£2,461	+1.8%	50	39
Spitalfields	£2,464	+1.8%	20	12
Tower Hill & Wapping South	£2,481	+1.8%	11	27
Columbia Road	£2,487	+1.8%	20	20
Millwall North	£2,490	+1.8%	29	34
Tower Hamlets 036	£2,496	+1.8%	15	16
Bethnal Green North West	£2,503	+1.8%	27	28
Mile End West	£2,517	+1.8%	72	56
Brick Lane North	£2,534	+1.8%	18	14
Canary Wharf	£2,548	+1.8%	13	14
Bethnal Green North East	£2,660	+1.8%	42	44
St George in the East & Wapping North	£2,784	+1.8%	26	26
Bow West	£3,063	+1.8%	36	41

Sources: ONS, MHCLG, DfT, DESNZ, Defra, Police.uk, Ofsted, Ofcom, HM Land Registry. Some columns (salary, council tax, HPI) are published at council-area level.

Section 2 / 8

Where to look in Tower Hamlets

Three short answers to "where should I focus?" in Tower Hamlets. Each list is filtered from the same neighbourhood data above — the basis of each shortlist is stated above the list so you know what's been weighted.

Top 5 cheapest

Lowest estimated monthly rent. Rent is the LAD-published ONS PIPR median, scaled per neighbourhood by local sale prices (Land Registry).

Top 5 most desirable

Highest composite liveability — combines safety, schools, transport access and rental affordability into one 0–100 score (higher = more liveable).

Top 5 best value

Highest liveability per pound of rent — desirable areas where rent stays close to or below the Tower Hamlets median.

Section 3 / 8

Cost of living

Median rent and council tax across Tower Hamlets.

Avg rent

£2,396/mo

#306 of 314 cities

ONS Rent Index (PIPR) · Mar 2026

Council tax

£149/mo

MHCLG Council Tax Band D · 2026

Sale price

£460,000

-11.6% YoY

HM Land Registry Price Paid · Jan 2025

Yrs to deposit

5.1 yr

Rent & price breakdownBy bedroom count · property type · affordability

council-area level rent by bedroom

ONS PIPR median for the council area

1 bed£1,946/mo

2 bed£2,362/mo

3 bed£2,681/mo

4 bed£3,308/mo

Sale price by property type

HMLR HPI average

Detached£920,161

Semi-detached£681,156

Terraced£694,897

Flat£437,710

Affordability

Price-to-earnings10.2×

Rent / take-home64%

Council tax (estimated, full council area)£1,789/yr

Mortgage (25y, 5%)£2,433/mo

Rent: ONS PIPR (council area). Council tax: VOA + MHCLG. Sale prices: HM Land Registry.

Section 4 / 8

Safety in Tower Hamlets

Crime in Tower Hamlets runs at 1.3× the national average. Bottom 10% (#311 of 318 cities) The supporting per-1,000-residents-per-year rate is 132.5, averaged across the council area's neighbourhoods.

How crime is measured

What's counted. Incidents recorded by territorial police forces and published to data.police.uk each month. Rates use the latest 12 months of data divided by the area's mid-2024 ONS resident population — so the figure is reported incidents per 1,000 residents per year.

Anti-social behaviour is the largest category in most areas and is worth reading carefully — it's a community-reports bucket (noise, rowdiness, nuisance), not "crime" in the legal sense. ASB and shoplifting are weighted lower than violent offences in the safety score on each page.

Caveats. The denominator is residents, so workday and tourist destinations can look worse than they feel for someone living there. Greater Manchester forces stopped publishing to data.police.uk in 2020, so figures for those areas are intentionally blank rather than misleadingly low.

ContextRates are per resident. As a major workday and tourist destination, the daytime population here is much larger than the resident base — so the per-resident figure overstates a typical resident's exposure.

Total crime / 1k / yr

132.5

#311 of 318 cities

Police.uk crime data · Feb 2026

Violent / 1k / yr

36.2

Police.uk crime data · Feb 2026

Burglary / 1k / yr

6.4

Police.uk crime data · Feb 2026

ASB / 1k / yr

31.0

Police.uk crime data · Feb 2026

Crime detailTop crime types · safest neighbourhoods in this council area

All crime categories

incidents / 1,000 residents / year — sorted high → low

Violent & sexual offences

36.2

Anti-social behaviour

31.0

Other theft

9.1

Drugs

7.4

Public order

7.0

Vehicle crime

6.9

Burglary

6.4

Criminal damage & arson

6.1

Theft from the person

5.9

Shoplifting

3.8

Robbery

3.0

Bicycle theft

2.5

Other crime

1.6

Possession of weapons

1.0

Safest neighbourhoods in Tower Hamlets

by safety score (higher = safer)

Millwall South74/100

Mile End West56/100

Bethnal Green North East44/100

Source: data.police.uk — incident counts adjusted for population, then averaged across the council area's neighbourhoods. National average = England + Wales population-weighted mean.

Section 5 / 8

Schools in Tower Hamlets

100% of schools serving Tower Hamlets are rated Good or Outstanding by Ofsted. Best 5% nationally (#1 of 296 cities)

Good or Outstanding

100%

#1 of 296 cities

Ofsted inspections · Feb 2026

Outstanding only

Ofsted inspections · Feb 2026

Good w/in 2 km

44%

#49 of 318 cities

Ofsted (spatial) · Feb 2026

Schools rated

Ofsted inspections · Feb 2026

School breakdownOfsted distribution · best neighbourhoods for schools

Ofsted rating distribution

Good100%

Outstanding (count)0

Good (count)1

Requires improvement0

Inadequate0

Best neighbourhoods for schools in Tower Hamlets

by school score

Mile End East & Burdett Estate98/100

Bow West98/100

Bow South98/100

Ofsted school inspection ratings, latest inspection per school.

Section 6 / 8

Transport in Tower Hamlets

Modelled door-to-door commute from this council area to nearby employment hubs. Closest first.

Best hub

10 min

#12 of 318 cities

DfT Journey Times 2019 · 2019 (programme paused)

To London

10 min

Median across local areas

DfT Journey Times 2019 · 2019 (programme paused)

To Birmingham

96 min

Median across local areas

DfT Journey Times 2019 · 2019 (programme paused)

To Bristol

108 min

Median across local areas

DfT Journey Times 2019 · 2019 (programme paused)

Transport detailAll city commute times · mode share · best-connected neighbourhoods

Commute to major UK cities

public transport, off-peak typical

London

10 min

Birmingham

96 min

Bristol

108 min

Cardiff

129 min

Sheffield

138 min

Manchester

146 min

Leeds

148 min

Liverpool

156 min

Edinburgh

262 min

Glasgow

291 min

How residents travel to work

Census 2021, mode share

Car10%Public25%Active14%WFH49%

Best-connected neighbourhoods in Tower Hamlets

by transport score

Aldgate99/100

Limehouse East99/100

Tower Hill & Wapping South99/100

DfT Journey Time Statistics + ONS Travel-to-Work.

Section 7 / 8

Job access from Tower Hamlets

Tower Hamlets has 1.11 jobs per resident locally. Best 5% nationally

Jobs per resident

1.11

#5 of 318 cities

ONS BRES · 2024

Drive to 5,000+ jobs

8 min

DfT Journey Times 2019 · 2019 (programme paused)

PT to 5,000+ jobs

12 min

DfT Journey Times 2019 · 2019 (programme paused)

5y jobs growth

+9.9%

ONS Jobs Density · 2024

Job access detailReachability tiers · sector mix in this council area

Reachable jobs by mode

Drive — 100 jobs6 min

PT — 100 jobs3 min

Drive — 500 jobs6 min

PT — 500 jobs4 min

Drive — 5,000 jobs8 min

PT — 5,000 jobs12 min

Local job mix by sector

ONS BRES, % of local jobs

Finance & insurance

21.1%

Professional & business svcs

18.0%

Tech & ICT

12.8%

Retail & hospitality

11.4%

Health & social care

7.7%

Education

5.6%

Construction

1.6%

Manufacturing

0.8%

ONS BRES (jobs density) + DfT job-accessibility minutes.

FAQ

Frequently asked about Tower Hamlets

Short answers to the questions we get most often. Each answer is anchored in the data above and links onward where you can dig deeper.

What is the average rent in Tower Hamlets?: The median monthly rent across Tower Hamlets is £2,396, based on ONS Private Rental Prices data. Individual neighbourhoods vary — see the shortlist above for the cheapest and most desirable areas.
Where is the cheapest place to rent in Tower Hamlets?: The cheapest neighbourhood in Tower Hamlets by estimated median rent is Whitechapel at approximately £2,018/month. The full top-five cheapest list and our methodology are above.
What's the best neighbourhood to live in Tower Hamlets?: By our composite liveability score (which blends safety, transport, schools, rent affordability and EPC), the top-ranked neighbourhood in Tower Hamlets is Mile End West at 72/100. The score is editorial; see /methodology/scoring/liveability for the formula.
Is Tower Hamlets a safe area?: Tower Hamlets has an average safety score of 31/100 across its constituent neighbourhoods (higher is safer). The score is the national percentile rank of police-recorded crimes per 1,000 residents per year, inverted so 100 means the safest 1% of England + Wales.
What is council tax in Tower Hamlets?: The most common council tax band in Tower Hamlets is not yet published, with the Band D annual charge currently around £1,327. Council tax is set at the local authority level so the same banding applies to every postcode within Tower Hamlets.
What is the average salary in Tower Hamlets?: The median annual resident salary in Tower Hamlets is £45,183, per ONS ASHE 2025. This is salary for people who live in Tower Hamlets, not for people who commute in to work there. Workplace median salary is published separately.
What is the average house price in Tower Hamlets?: The average property price in Tower Hamlets is approximately £455,307 according to HM Land Registry's House Price Index. Individual neighbourhoods vary — typically ±20% around this council area median.
What's the rental yield in Tower Hamlets?: Gross rental yield in Tower Hamlets is approximately 6.1% — the council-area level median rent annualised over the council-area level median sale price. Net yield (after agency, void, maintenance and tax) typically runs 30–40% lower.
How long does it take to save a deposit in Tower Hamlets?: Saving a 10% deposit at the council area median sale price on the council area median salary, while putting away 10% of takehome pay each month, takes approximately 5.1 years in Tower Hamlets. Faster if you save more, slower if rents are eating into savings.
Is gigabit broadband available in Tower Hamlets?: 100% of premises in Tower Hamlets are gigabit-capable per Ofcom Connected Nations 2025. Coverage is patchier in older terraces and rural fringes — check your specific postcode for service availability.
What's the unemployment rate in Tower Hamlets?: 6.7% of 16-64 residents in Tower Hamlets are on the DWP Claimant Count — Universal Credit while seeking work, or Jobseeker's Allowance. That's the live monthly local indicator. It's narrower than the ONS Labour Force Survey "ILO unemployment rate" (which counts anyone actively job-seeking on a separate denominator) and narrower again than Census 2021's "% unemployed" (which is calculated against all 16+ residents and so isn't directly comparable).
How many neighbourhoods are in Tower Hamlets?: Tower Hamlets contains 34 neighbourhood neighbourhoods covering 169 sub-areas (local areas). Browse the full list at the bottom of this page or use the neighbourhood map above to drill into a specific area.

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Section 8 / 8

All sub-areas in Tower Hamlets

Every local area, ordered by crawl priority. Most readers want the neighbourhood-level view — these are for deep-link cases or external search-engine arrivals.

Showing 80 of 169 sub-areas. Drill into any neighbourhood above for the full sub-area list.

Planning to move to Tower Hamlets? See the moving checklist →