Is Wales expensive to live in?

Wales is the cheapest of the UK’s home nations to live in, though still expensive by global standards. CostLiving’s moderate benchmark is $2,650 a month for a single person, comfortably under England at $3,225, and the saving is where it always is in Britain: rent. Housing runs $1,132 a month at the Welsh moderate tier, and outside Cardiff it falls fast, the valleys, west Wales and the north offer some of the lowest housing costs anywhere in Great Britain. Cardiff itself prices at $2,850 a month moderate, a capital premium that still undercuts every comparable English city. What doesn’t get cheaper: heating older stone housing stock through wet winters, and running a car, which rural Wales makes close to mandatory since public transport thins out beyond the M4 corridor. For remote workers earning English or American salaries, Wales is one of the UK’s best cost arbitrages, big-country landscape and city access at a discount to everywhere east of the border. Full tiers on our Wales cost of living page, with the wider picture in our UK cost of living guide.