SOARING housing costs mean Oxford workers are spending increasingly high proportions of their wages on renting a place in the city.

Rents have shot up by up to 20 per cent in recent years but wages have failed to keep pace, making Oxford one of the least affordable places in the country.

A one-bedroom flat costs around £1,270 a month to rent.

This equates to £15,240 a year – more than 50 per cent of the average wage of £24,000 a year, according to property website home.co.uk’s Oxford Market Rent Summary.

Two-bedroom properties are typically priced at £1,743 per month, with three-bedrooms at £1,853 per month.

Even renting one room in a shared house with communal living room and bathroom will set a tenant back £600 per month.

Frances Place, who works for East Oxford-based digital agency White October, pays £500 a month to share a house off Cowley Road.

She said: “I would like to buy a place, because renting feels like a waste of money, but it’s so expensive to save for a deposit.

“Putting enough money aside while affording rent is very difficult.”

The 26-year-old account manager said she would have to move out of the city to afford her own place.

She added: “Buying in Oxford doesn’t seem possible at all.

“I will need to move further out but if I do that, then I have to pay more to commute back in, as my job is in Oxford.”

Liz Nutall, senior lettings agent at Breckon & Breckon estate agents, said: “Prices have been going up steadily since the end of the so-called recession, which didn’t really hit Oxford to the extent it did the rest of the country.

“There have been increases of between 10 and 20 per cent per calender month, so there are some fairly steep increases happening.”

She added: “We’ve got the hospital, university, BMW, all the science parks, but there’s not enough property.”

Ms Nutall’s agency markets rooms in a shared house in Brock Grove Street, near Botley Road, at £675 per month, with tenants sharing a living room and bathroom.

A 1930s-style family house in Edgeway Road, Cowley, would fetch £1,200 to £1,600 per month and a two-bedroom house in Albert Street, Jericho, £1,750 per month.

At the top of the range, a fourbedroom house in St John Street costs £3,450 per month.

Peter Meinertzhagen, 27, commutes every day from his home in Chipping Norton to his job as a digital marketing manager in Oxford.

He is hoping to put in an offer for a house in Temple Cowley, but said it has not been easy to find somewhere affordable.

He said: “There is a real lack of affordable homes. You need a very hefty deposit to buy somewhere and have to be willing to compromise on the style and location of the property.

“Rent prices are also very high in Oxford so it makes it very hard to raise the deposit you need.

“If you haven’t got a large deposit it must be almost impossible to buy anywhere.”

Michael Joubert, lettings director at Scottfraser, said agents have to balance the rising value of property with affordability when fixing rents.

He said: “We are constantly mindful of affordability at the renewal stage so it is taken into consideration by the landlords to keep tenants renewing and renewing, but on the other side we have to keep the figures stacking up.”

The high rental prices are fuelled by a shortage of housing, which is driving house prices higher.

The cost of buying a home increased faster in Oxford than anywhere else in the UK over the past year, according to a study by the Hometrack Cities Index.

It showed house prices in the city went up an average of 14 per cent year on year between March 2014 and March 2015.

This compared with 12 per cent in London, and 10 per cent in Bristol.

The average price of a house in Oxford is now £373,100, compared to an average of £186,878 across the UK.