Cambridge Residential Rental Market, Autumn 2021

While the summer months may not have seen the wholesale return of tourists to the city centre, day-to-day activity did resume with strong levels of activity in both the employment and housing markets. Existing pressures on rental stock accelerated with new workers adding to the usual summer uptick in activity in advance of the new school year.

This has driven a step change in rents in a city where the housing stock is
insufficient in scale to accommodate a rapidly expanding employment base. This imbalance will deteriorate further, with business space demand, dominated by the science and technology sectors, currently at its highest level for eight years.