In 2024, approximately ** percent of all housing in England was owner-occupied. This share declined notably since the early 2000's, as house prices gradually grew and affordability declined. In 2021, mortgage interest rates soared, leading to even lower homebuyer sentiment.

For the first time since data became available, newly-built houses in Britain have been built with fewer than three bedrooms per house in the 2010s. From the 1930s until the 1980s, the number of bedrooms fluctuated between 3.16 and 3.63 rooms per house, however declining family sizes caused this number to gradually decrease from the 1980s onwards, and in the 2010s the average number of bedrooms has fallen to 2.95 rooms per house.

Starts and completions of new build dwellings in the UK, on a quarterly and annual basis, time series data

The share of the English population who occupied a rental apartment decreased gradually since the 1980, but started rising again after 2003. As of 2024, 35.2 percent of the population rented, with the majority renting from a private landlord. Approximately 16.6 percent of the population were social renters and rented from a housing association or a local authority.

The average house price decreased year-on-year in 12 of London's boroughs as of May 2025 amid a slowdown in the UK housing market. Barking and Dagenham was the most affordable borough to buy a house, with an average price of ******* British pounds. Kensington and Chelsea stood at the other end of the spectrum, with an average price of ****million British pounds. Demand for housing and house prices With vastly more job and cultural opportunities, megacities continue attracting people from all over the world. Since the beginning of the 1980s, the population of London has increased by more than 2 million inhabitants and in the next 20 years, it is forecast to increase by almost *** million. That makes London properties a valuable asset. Historically, property prices in London have risen steadily, albeit with minor fluctuations. Residential properties transactions Since 2006, the number of residential property sales has varied between *** million and *** million transactions annually. The housing boom in 2021 led to an increase in home purchases, but the economic uncertainty, stubborn inflation, and dramatically higher interest rates have led to transactions falling.

Private companies were responsible for most of the new homes built in the United Kingdom (UK), amounting to ******* units in 2023. Housing completions in the UK decreased for three years in a row between 2007 and 2010. This was followed by several years of fluctuation and a gradual increase from 2013 to 2019. The number of homes completed in England remained relatively stable in 2021 and 2022, after reaching a low point in the second quarter of 2020 due to the restrictions implemented to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Construction starts and completions Comparing the number of starts and completions in London side-by-side shows that whenever there is a significant growth or fall in the number of projects started, that peak or valley tends to be reflected in the number of buildings completed a couple of years later. Nevertheless, disruptions, delays, and other obstacles may affect that correlation. Still, observing how many home construction projects started in the UK can provide some insight into the level of activity that construction companies may have in the near future. Given that the number of housing starts is forecast to fall in 2023, there might be slightly less work to be carried out the following year. Nevertheless, housing starts are expected to pick up again by 2024 and 2025. Housing associations in the UK Housing associations are not-for-profit organizations created to develop and rent homes for a lower price than in the private market. They have acquired certain relevance in the UK, although this type of organization also exists in other countries. On several occasions during the past decade, over a fifth of housing starts in London were developed by housing associations. Meanwhile, the number of new homes completed in Scotland by housing associations has increased a lot throughout the years, with several thousand units constructed every year during the past decades.

In the decades between 1930 and 2020, the size of the average living room in newly built houses in Britain has risen from 16 square meters in the 1930s, to 24.9 square meters in the 1970s, before falling to 17.1 square meters in recent years. The reason for the increase in living room size (and house sizes in general) between 1950 and 1980, was due to Britain's economic recovery after the Second World War. However, decreasing family sizes caused the demand for larger houses to drop from the 1980s onwards, and today, newly built living rooms are closer in size to their pre-war levels than their size in the previous decade.

Most of England's housing stock is owner occupied and built before 1919. Among the homes built after 2002, about 2.1 million homes were owner occupied, about 654,000 were privately rented and approximately 459,000 were social housing. The largest share of social housing was found in buildings built between 1945 and 1980. In 2024, there were around 15.8 million owner occupied households in England.

The number of dwellings in England increased steadily since 2001, reaching a total of approximately **** million dwellings as of March 31, 2023. In 2001, the first year under observation, there was a total of over **** million dwellings in England, meaning that the estimated total number of dwellings increased by more than *** million during the period under observation.

The share of United Kingdom households that own a home computer reached a plateau of 88 percent, starting in 2015/16. It wasn’t until 2002/03 that home computers could be found in a majority of households in the United Kingdom, when the rate of ownership jumped from 49 percent to 55 percent.

Changing face of the home computer

Although most households contain a computer, the actual device used is likely to have changed considerably in recent years. In 2010 the majority of households still reported owning a desktop PC or iMac computer, with 52 percent of people owning such a device. By 2018, this rate fell to just 28 percent. Laptops, conversely, have been on the rise, with the penetration rate increasing from 47 percent in 2009, to 63 percent in 2018.

Laptop sales

According to the most recent figures from the United Kingdom (UK) Office for National Statistics (ONS), the sales value of laptops, notebooks and palm-top organizers reached 58.79 billion British pounds in 2017. In that same year, 46 percent of respondents to a Statista survey reported buying a laptop every 3-5 years.

Worldwide, total laptop sales are expected to reach 171 million units in 2023, up from 166 million units in 2019. Desktop sales are expected to contract, from 88.4 million units in 2019, to 79.5 million units by 2023.

The statistic shows the percent of households in the United Kingdom (UK) that own a landline telephone. In 1970, when this survey initiated, 35 percent of households owned a telephone. As of 2018, that number had increased significantly to 85 percent of households. The market penetration was at it's highest in the years 1998-2000 when it reach 95 percent. It's important to note that this statistic refers only to land line phones. It does not include mobile phones.Although fixed-line telephony has been losing customers since around 1998, its remaining customers seem to be pretty satisfied with the overall service. Most consumers are now making telephone calls in their homes using mobile phones instead of telephones. This is also reflected in the mobile telephony penetration. The convenience of mobile and smartphones seems to be winning over especially younger generations.