The deposit gap: cheapest vs dearest UK cities to save for, 2026
Britain's house-price map is really a savings map. Because a mortgage deposit is a percentage of the purchase price, the cash a buyer needs to get through the front door swings enormously depending on where that door is. On 2025 sales, a 10% deposit on the typical home ranges from £14,100 in Kingston upon Hull to £115,000 in Kensington and Chelsea — the same share of the price, but more than eight times the cash.
The figures below use the median sale price for each city in 2025, drawn from HM Land Registry's Price Paid records for houses and flats. The median is the mid-point of the market — half of local sales were cheaper, half dearer — so it describes the typical home rather than the cheapest or the most expensive.
What a deposit costs, city by city
| City | 2025 median price | 5% deposit | 10% deposit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kingston upon Hull | £141,000 | £7,050 | £14,100 |
| Sunderland | £155,000 | £7,750 | £15,500 |
| Liverpool | £182,000 | £9,100 | £18,200 |
| Bradford | £186,000 | £9,300 | £18,600 |
| Nottingham | £200,000 | £10,000 | £20,000 |
| Newcastle upon Tyne | £205,000 | £10,250 | £20,500 |
| Sheffield | £217,500 | £10,875 | £21,750 |
| Birmingham | £237,000 | £11,850 | £23,700 |
| Leeds | £247,500 | £12,375 | £24,750 |
| Manchester | £250,000 | £12,500 | £25,000 |
| England (median) | £300,000 | £15,000 | £30,000 |
| Bristol | £350,000 | £17,500 | £35,000 |
| Wandsworth | £650,000 | £32,500 | £65,000 |
| Hammersmith and Fulham | £705,000 | £35,250 | £70,500 |
| Camden | £775,000 | £38,750 | £77,500 |
| Westminster | £875,000 | £43,750 | £87,500 |
| Kensington and Chelsea | £1,150,000 | £57,500 | £115,000 |
The pattern is stark. Across these sixteen areas the median home ranges from £141,000 to £1.15m — an 8.2× spread — and the deposit tracks it exactly. A 5% deposit, the minimum most mainstream lenders will accept, is £7,050 on Hull's median and £57,500 on Kensington and Chelsea's. Step up to the more common 10% deposit and the range runs from £14,100 to £115,000.
For reference, the median home across England as a whole sold for exactly £300,000 in 2025, across 720,622 residential transactions, putting the national 10% deposit at £30,000 and the 5% deposit at £15,000.
The same percentage, very different cash
The reason the gap feels so wide to savers is that a deposit is a fixed proportion of a moving number. Every buyer in the table is asked for the same 5% or 10%; what differs is the price that percentage is applied to.
That has a clean consequence for saving time. At any given monthly saving rate, the deposit that takes the longest to reach is Kensington and Chelsea's — 8.2 times longer than Hull's, simply because it is 8.2 times larger. To make the arithmetic tangible, setting aside an illustrative £500 a month (a figure chosen only to show the maths, not a suggested amount) would accumulate Hull's £14,100 in roughly 28 months and Kensington and Chelsea's £115,000 in roughly 19 years, before any interest or help received. Real timelines depend entirely on individual circumstances.
The northern and Midlands cities cluster tightly at the affordable end: Hull, Sunderland, Liverpool, Bradford, Nottingham and Newcastle all sit at or below £205,000, so a 10% deposit stays under £20,500. Manchester and Leeds, the largest regional economies here, land right around £25,000. Bristol is the outlier among the regional cities at £350,000, above the England median. The five inner-London boroughs then occupy a category of their own, from Wandsworth's £650,000 median up to Kensington and Chelsea's £1.15m.
The deposit is only the first cheque
The deposit is the largest single sum most buyers hand over, but it is not the only one. Stamp duty, conveyancing, searches and a survey all sit on top, and these push the gap between cheap and dear areas wider still.
Stamp duty is the clearest example. First-time buyers of a main residence pay no Stamp Duty Land Tax up to £300,000, with tapered relief between £300,000 and £500,000 and none above it (HMRC, rates in force since April 2025). Every regional city in the table has a median at or below that £300,000 ceiling, so a first-time buyer paying the typical local price owes no stamp duty at all. In the inner-London boroughs, where medians run from £650,000 to £1.15m, first-time-buyer relief does not apply and the tax becomes a substantial extra sum on completion — on top of a deposit that is already several times larger. You can see the full one-off and monthly picture at the true cost of buying a £300,000 home.
The loan on the other side
A smaller deposit in a cheaper city also means a smaller mortgage. A 10% deposit on Hull's £141,000 median leaves a £126,900 loan; the same 10% on Kensington and Chelsea's £1.15m leaves £1,035,000. The monthly cost of that borrowing depends on the rate a lender offers, which in turn depends on the deposit size, the term and the borrower's circumstances — higher loan-to-value mortgages, taken with a 5% or 10% deposit, are typically priced above the Bank of England's benchmark 75% loan-to-value rate. To see the all-in monthly figure — mortgage, council tax and energy — for a specific property, check the true cost of any Bradford postcode or the same breakdown for a Westminster postcode.
What the numbers do and don't say
These medians describe the typical home sold in each city in 2025. They are not a valuation of any individual property, and they are not a forecast — a median can move as the mix of homes sold changes. The percentage-deposit figures assume a purchase at the local median; a cheaper flat or a dearer house changes the cash needed in proportion. And a deposit is a threshold to borrow, not a measure of affordability on its own: lenders also test income, outgoings and the stressed cost of the loan.
For the mechanics of how deposits and loan-to-value bands work, see how much deposit you need for a UK mortgage; for where entry prices are lowest in the capital, see the cheapest London boroughs for first-time buyers; and for more like this, browse more buyer guides.
Based on 720,622 English residential sales completed in 2025 (HM Land Registry Price Paid). Speak to a qualified adviser before acting.