Brighton and Manchester top places to be a student

Accommodation for Students, the UK's No 1 student accommodation website, has just released new data identifying the best places to be a student, based on nearly 32,000 student reviews from 78 university towns. 

Equal first with a score of 62% are Brighton and Manchester in England, and Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Dundee in Scotland. Liverpool, Newcastle, Sheffield, Cardiff, Swansea, Exeter, Plymouth, Belfast, Oxford and Southampton are among the second tier that scored 60%.

Surprises in the table include London and Cambridge with scores of just 56% but bottom of the league are Salford and Bolton with 42%, and Bradford with 46%.

In their reviews, students rated (out of 10) their university location across five criteria: going out (restaurants, pubs, clubs), shops (supermarkets, corner shops, book shops, video shops), transport links (buses, trams, train, underground), community (safety, student population, surroundings) and facilities (gyms, libraries, parks).

Accommodation for Students has also released its latest rental data, based on over 31,000 properties across 72 UK locations.

The average student weekly rent for the UK is £59. However, rents are much higher in some cities, notably London, where the average student weekly rent is £100.

Cambridge and Oxford are also well above average, with weekly rents of £83 and £79 respectively.

Interestingly, although Brighton and Manchester scored equally in terms of the best place to be a student in England, Manchester students have much the better deal in terms of rent, only paying an average £52 per week, compared to the £72 per week paid by Brighton students.

William Berry, co-founder and director of Accommodation for Students, said: "This information, available on our website, represents students' real opinions about where they study and is, of course, helpful to students going to university for the first time. It is also useful for existing students who are looking to move as it also provides a breakdown of the best areas within cities. For instance, in the City of Manchester the area of Fallowfield comes out as the top place to live for students. For Brighton, it's Bevendean.

"Likewise our student rental analysis provides invaluable data about the average cost and availability of student accommodation in over 80 locations throughout the UK.

"Features like these are one reason why Accommodation for Students has over 400,000 registered student users, receives over 475,000 unique visitors in peak months, and has students spending an average of over 7 minutes on the site per visit."