What is a good price per square metre in the UK?

People ask this expecting one number, and there is one: the median home sold in England & Wales in the 12 months to August 2026 went for £3,380 per square metre, across 482,197 matched sales. It is also close to useless on its own, because the district figures behind it differ by more than a factor of ten. SR1, central Sunderland sits at £725/m², and W1K, Mayfair at £25,000/m². The same money buys many times more floor space in the first than in the second. Both are thin markets, 45 matched sales in SR1 and 40 in W1K, and thin enough that each falls back to a 24-month window rather than the 12 used everywhere else in this article. That is the first thing to take from them: read the count, and the window, alongside the figure. A “good” price only means something against the market the home actually sits in.

What is the national picture, region by region?

The regional medians give you the first level of context. Over the 12 months to August 2026, from HM Land Registry sold prices matched to EPC floor areas:

Two things worth noticing. The gap between the dearest region and the cheapest is a factor of 3.3, and it is wider per square metre than it looks in headline prices, because homes in the dearest region are also smaller. And the regions, which the regional guide takes one at a time, are themselves averages of very different districts: TS1 in Middlesbrough sits at £940/m² while E14 on the Isle of Dogs is £6,760/m², and both are ordinary, actively traded markets, on 84 and 572 matched sales respectively.

Good compared with what?

The useful comparison is not against the country, it is against the postcode district. Every district page shows two things designed for exactly this judgement: the median, and the middle 60% of matched sales, the band from the 20th to the 80th percentile.

A rule of thumb that survives contact with the data: below the district median is where value hunting starts, inside the middle 60% is the ordinary market, and above the 80th percentile needs a reason you can name, a garden, a view, a finished loft, before it is anything but expensive.

How do you judge any figure in four steps?

The question “is this a good price per square metre” has a procedure rather than an answer. It takes about five minutes and each step rules something out.

1. Get the floor area from the certificate, not the listing. Agents measure differently and some quote the plot. The certificate’s total floor area is the number the whole of this site divides by, and what it includes and excludes is worth five minutes on its own.
2. Divide, then compare against the district, not the region. A regional median pools markets that differ by a factor of three. The district page is the smallest honest comparison this site publishes.
3. Read the count and the window beside the median. A median on 600 matched sales describes a market. A median on 30 describes 30 sales, and the page says which it is. Where a district is thin the window widens from 12 months to 24 or more, and the page says that too. The interval printed beside the median turns that count into a range, which is the figure to negotiate from.
4. Split by tenure before you conclude anything. Leasehold and freehold trade at genuinely different rates in the same postcode, so a blended median can flatter or punish a flat for no reason connected to the flat. The gap points both ways, which is why it has to be checked rather than assumed. The same goes for property type: a flat priced against a district median is priced against houses.

What will a good rate still not tell you?

Three things, and they are the reason this measure is a starting point rather than a verdict. It cannot see condition: a wreck and a refurbishment at the same rate are not the same purchase. It cannot see the lease, so a flat with 70 years left and one with 900 sit in the same median. And it cannot see whether the market itself is moving, which is a question about time rather than about space and is answered by an index built on repeat sales instead.

There is also a coverage limit worth knowing before you lean on any rate: about a fifth of sales carry no floor area at all, and the share is much higher among detached houses than among flats. The rate on a district of large detached homes rests on a smaller slice of its own market than the same rate three postcodes away.

Why not just use the price?

Because the price mostly measures the size. The median home sold in BR1, Bromley costs a good deal more than the median home sold in E16, Canning Town, which makes Bromley look the dearer market. Per square metre it is the other way round: £5,500/m² in Bromley against £5,830/m² in Canning Town. Bromley money buys Bromley space. Dividing by floor area is the only way to see that, and it is why this site exists.

How do you check your own area?

Search any postcode district, sector or full postcode and read the two numbers that matter: the median, and where the middle 60% runs. The league tables show the extremes across England & Wales, the FAQ answers the common questions. And if the rate is still abstract, the same figure divided into a budget gives it in square metres you can pace out. Every figure on this page, national, regional and district alike, is read from the current dataset as the page is built, currently August 2026, so an example here and the district page it links to cannot disagree. Everything is rebuilt monthly from HM Land Registry sold prices matched to EPC floor areas.