About Upsticks
How it works
Upsticks shows the real ongoing monthly costof living anywhere in England & Wales: rent, council tax, energy, water, broadband and indicative insurance, in one honest view. Built for people upping sticks who want no nasty surprises after they move.
No surprises, promise.
These are estimates, not quotes. Real figures vary by property and provider. We show our sources so you can check our working.
What we add up
Every area's headline is the sum of the ongoing monthly bills you'd actually pay. Each figure carries its source and an “as of” date. Tap any number on an area page to see exactly where it came from.
Rent
RealAverage private rent by local authority and bedroom count, monthly.
ONS Price Index of Private Rents
Council tax
Real (England)Band D headline with the full A–H(/I) table, normalised to a monthly figure.
MHCLG (England) · StatsWales (Wales)
Energy
RealPer-region unit rates + standing charges for a medium household, gas + electric.
Ofgem price cap (via Octopus 'Flexible') × Ofgem TDCV
Broadband
Real coverageSuperfast & gigabit availability per area; a representative national package price.
Ofcom Connected Nations + house prices via ONS HPSSA
Water
RealAverage household bill for the water & sewerage company serving the area.
Water UK / CCW + WaSC area mapping
Insurance
IndicativeIndicative regional home + car averages, never a quote.
Confused.com/WTW (car) + ABI (home), regional
“Real” figures are wired to the live published source. Anything still on representative sample data is badged “Sample data” on the area page itself, so you always know what you're looking at.
From the whole country to your street
Start at the national map, drill into any of the ~318 local authorities, then into the wards that make them up. Rent, council tax, energy and water are set at the council level, so they're the same across a borough, but broadband and house prices shift ward to ward, and we show those locally.
The honest caveats
- • Estimates, not quotes. Real figures vary by property and provider.
- • Local-authority level for the core bills, never per-property precision.
- • Insurance & water bills are indicative regional figures, badged as such.
- • England & Wales only for now. Scotland & NI use different systems and are coming later.
How we make money
Some links on an area page (to property portals like Rightmove and Zoopla, or to compare broadband, insurance and moving services) are partner links, and we may earn a small commission if you use them. That's it. It never changes a single figure on the site: the costs, the map and the rankings are always the honest numbers, worked out from the sources above. Commercial links are clearly labelled and kept separate from the data.