Data as of July 2026 · computed by Flatscout from live cross-portal listings and official open data
Colchester mixes three tenant markets that rarely overlap: garrison families around the military base, Essex University students clustered towards Wivenhoe, and London commuters on the hour-long Liverpool Street line — each anchoring a different part of town at a different price.
Colchester currently has 804 live rental listings across the portals Flatscout tracks — Rightmove, Zoopla and SpareRoom — with a median asking rent of £1,250 a month for a whole property. Rooms in shared homes start lower, and the by-postcode table below shows how much the same budget buys in different corners of the city.
Everything on this page is computed from listings Flatscout scrapes and de-duplicates around the clock, joined with official open data: the ONS Price Index of Private Rents for the long-run trend, ONS earnings data for affordability, police.uk street-level crime, VOA council-tax bands, Ofcom broadband coverage, and EPC certificates matched to the homes actually being advertised right now. Figures refresh continuously — the numbers below were last computed in July 2026.
If you're actively hunting, the data has one practical message: well-priced Colchester rentals go in hours, not days. Flatscout watches every portal and can alert you by email, WhatsApp or Telegram within minutes of a matching listing appearing — before most renters have refreshed the app.
| Bedrooms | Median rent | Available |
|---|---|---|
| Studio | £775/mo | 17 |
| 1 bed | £900/mo | 148 |
| 2 bed | £1,200/mo | 270 |
| 3 bed | £1,500/mo | 125 |
| 4+ bed | £2,000/mo | 80 |
| Room in shared home | £625/mo | 164 |
| Outcode | Median rent | Listings |
|---|---|---|
| CO6 | £1,750/mo | 38 |
| CO7 | £1,498/mo | 42 |
| CO5 | £1,425/mo | 22 |
| CO4 | £1,350/mo | 150 |
| CO3 | £1,300/mo | 59 |
| CO2 | £1,250/mo | 204 |
| CO1 | £1,100/mo | 125 |
The ONS Price Index of Private Rents puts the average rent across ALL Colchester tenancies at £1,203/mo in June 2026 — up 3.4% on a year earlier. In January 2020 it was £848/mo. The ONS average sits below asking-rent medians because it includes existing tenancies, not just newly advertised homes.
Renting at the ONS average of £1,203/mo takes roughly 46% of the local median gross salary of £31,589 a year (ONS ASHE 2025). The conventional affordability threshold is 30%.
Of 804 live listings, 53% advertise a garden and 21% advertise parking. Portals under-report features, so treat these as a floor.
| Band | Listings |
|---|---|
| B | 5 |
| C | 27 |
| D | 11 |
| E | 1 |
| F | 3 |
| Band | Properties |
|---|---|
| Band A | 9,600 |
| Band B | 23,120 |
| Band C | 21,170 |
| Band D | 16,230 |
| Band E | 9,320 |
| Band F | 4,310 |
| Band G | 2,600 |
| Band H | 170 |
Residential premises coverage in Colchester: 63% full fibre (FTTP), 83% gigabit-capable, 98% superfast (30 Mbit/s+) (Ofcom Connected Nations).
police.uk street-level data for May 2026: median 169 reported incidents per postcode district across 6 districts around the busiest rental postcodes. The most common category city-wide is violence and sexual offences (42% of reports).
| Area | Reports / 1,000 people | Most common category |
|---|---|---|
| Highwoods | 17.8 | violence and sexual offences |
| New Town | 58.2 | violence and sexual offences |
| Stanway | 13.7 | violence and sexual offences |
| Town Centre | 47.2 | violence and sexual offences |
| Wivenhoe | 4.1 | violence and sexual offences |
No single portal has every home — Flatscout merges and de-duplicates them all, so each property is counted once.
The median asking rent in Colchester is £1,250 per month for a whole property, based on 804 live listings tracked by Flatscout across Rightmove, Zoopla and SpareRoom (July 2026).
Flatscout is currently tracking 804 active rental listings in Colchester, with 129 new listings added in the last 7 days. Listings from every portal are merged and de-duplicated, so each home is counted once.
The median asking rent for a one-bedroom property in Colchester is £900 per month, while a room in a shared home has a median of £625 (July 2026).
Across 6 postcode districts analysed, the median is 169 reported crimes per district per month, and the most common category is violence and sexual offences. Crime varies a lot street by street — data from data.police.uk (May 2026).
Renting at the ONS average of £1,203/mo takes roughly 46% of the local median gross salary of £31,589 (ONS ASHE 2025). The conventional affordability threshold is 30%.