It pays to split the rent in places like Newcastle and Swindon

Newcastle, Swindon, Coventry and Sheffield are among the top places where it pays for tenants to get a flatmate, a property website has found.

Rightmove's research, which covered England and Wales, found that renters outside London could save an average of £210 a month - or £2,520 a year - if they share a two-bedroom flat with another person rather than renting out a one-bedroom flat alone.

Within London, some rental sector tenants could save around £6,000 a year by sharing a two-bedroom flat with another person rather then living alone in a one-bed flat.%VIRTUAL-ArticleSidebar-property-guide%

Righmove made its findings by comparing rents advertised on its website for a one-bedroom flat with those for a two-bed flat. The properties were advertised during the final three months of 2015.

Looking across the regions, Newcastle-upon-Tyne was found to be the most cost-effective place to move from a one bed to a two-bed flat.

Tenants living in Newcastle faces a jump of 11% to rent a flat with two bedrooms rather than just one. The average monthly rent advertised on a one-bed flat in Newcastle was £553, compared with an average rent of £614 on a two-bedroom flat.

This means that two people sharing a two-bed flat and splitting the rent equally would pay £307 each - saving £246 a month on the rent compared with if they rented alone. Over a year, the saving on rent would add up to nearly £3,000, which tenants could put towards saving for a deposit for a house.

Sam Mitchell, head of lettings at Rightmove, said: "The potential saving of renting and sharing a two bed rather than a one-bed flat is before factoring in reduced costs from splitting the bills.

"It could be a good option for renters looking to save up for a deposit to buy or other financial commitment. The Government has various well-publicised initiatives to encourage the home ownership that some tenants would love to achieve, and while sharing can have its pitfalls it is a potentially lucrative solution."

In Swindon, tenants could save £240 a month by flat-sharing rather than renting alone, while in Coventry tenants could save £217 a month and in Sheffield the monthly saving could be £205, Rightmove found.

Within London, Rightmove found that Brent, Muswell Hill, Lewisham, Barking and Brixton were the areas where sharing a two-bed flat tended to pay off the most compared with renting alone.

In Brent, the average monthly rent on a one-bed flat was £1,250, while for a two-bed flat it was £1,466. This would mean that a tenant could save £517 a month in rent by flat-sharing and splitting the rent equally - adding up to a saving of more than £6,200 over a year.

Rightmove said demand for homes was strong during the festive break, with the website recording its busiest ever Christmas and New Year traffic for both sales and lettings properties. It saw a 22% increase in page views on both Christmas Day and Boxing Day compared to 2014.

It said the average asking prices on rents on all property types outside London increased by 3.8% across 2015 to reach £756 per month.

The East of England led the increases with a 6.5% annual hike. All regions saw a year-on-year rise in rental asking prices, with the most modest rate of growth in London at 0.5%, where it appears many tenants have hit their "affordability ceiling", Rightmove said. The average monthly asking rental price in London was £1,994 in the last three months of 2015.

In Wales, the average rental asking price was £649 per month, having increased by 4.1% during 2015.

Within Wales, the city of Newport was found to be the place where it is most cost-effective to share a flat. Two people sharing a flat there could save £168 each compared with renting a one-bed flat alone.