The housing costs inflation rate for low-income households in the United Kingdom was noticeably higher than that of high-income ones between April 2022 and April 2023, during a serious cost of living crisis in the UK. As of June 2024, however, the inflation rate for high-income households was higher than that of middle or low incomes ones.

In June 2025, 62 percent of households in Great Britain reported that their cost of living had increased in the previous month, compared with 72 percent in April. Although the share of people reporting a cost of living increase has generally been falling since August 2022, when 91 percent of households reported an increase, the most recent figures indicate that the Cost of Living Crisis is still ongoing for many households in the UK. Crisis ligers even as inflation falls Although various factors have been driving the Cost of Living Crisis in Britain, high inflation has undoubtedly been one of the main factors. After several years of relatively low inflation, the CPI inflation rate shot up from 2021 onwards, hitting a high of 11.1 percent in October 2022. In the months since that peak, inflation has fallen to more usual levels, and was 2.5 percent in December 2024, slightly up from 1.7 percent in September. Since June 2023, wages have also started to grow at a faster rate than inflation, albeit after a long period where average wages were falling relative to overall price increases. Economy continues to be the main issue for voters Ahead of the last UK general election, the economy was consistently selected as the main issue for voters for several months. Although the Conservative Party was seen by voters as the best party for handling the economy before October 2022, this perception collapsed following the market's reaction to Liz Truss' mini-budget. Even after changing their leader from Truss to Rishi Sunak, the Conservatives continued to fall in the polls, and would go onto lose the election decisively. Since the election, the economy remains the most important issue in the UK, although it was only slightly ahead of immigration and health as of January 2025.

This statistic shows the estimated minimum outgoings required to live in London, United Kingdom (UK) for six months in 2014. The cost of rent is estimated to be, at its lowest, ***** British pounds over the six month period, with bills at ***** British pounds. It is worth noting that the estimated rent is for a shared property.

The average for 2021 based on 165 countries was 79.81 index points. The highest value was in Bermuda: 212.7 index points and the lowest value was in Syria: 33.25 index points. The indicator is available from 2017 to 2021. Below is a chart for all countries where data are available.

In June 2024, the household cost inflation rate (HCI) for low-income households in the United Kingdom was 1.7 percent, compared with 2.3 percent for middle-income households, and 3.3 percent for high-income households. Unlike other measures of inflation such as the consumer price index (CPI) the HCI isn't based on a fixed basket of goods, but is weighted to show how price changes affect different households by their economic status.

Detailed breakdown of average weekly household expenditure on goods and services in the UK. Data are shown by place of purchase, income group (deciles) and age of household reference person.

Average weekly household expenditure on goods and services in the UK. Data are shown by region, age, income (including equivalised) group (deciles and quintiles), economic status, socio-economic class, housing tenure, output area classification, urban and rural areas (Great Britain only), place of purchase and household composition.

This statistic shows the average weekly housing costs in the United Kingdom (UK) in 2012, by tenure. In 2012, 58 percent of all households were paying between £60 and £119 housing costs per week.

Average weekly earnings for the whole economy, for total and regular pay, in real terms (adjusted for consumer price inflation), UK, monthly, seasonally adjusted.

Expenditure on rent by renters and mortgages by mortgage holders, by region and age from the Living Costs and Food Survey for the financial year ending 2022. Data is presented as a proportion of total expenditure and a proportion of disposable income.

Analysis of ‘Housing in London’ provided by Analyst-2 (analyst-2.ai), based on source dataset retrieved from https://www.kaggle.com/justinas/housing-in-london on 28 January 2022.

--- Dataset description provided by original source is as follows ---

Update 29-04-2020: The data is now split into two files based on the variable collection frequency (monthly and yearly). Additional variables added: area size in hectares, number of jobs in the area, number of people living in the area.

Context

I have been inspired by Xavier and his work on Barcelona to explore the city of London! 🇬🇧 💂

Content

The datasets is primarily centered around the housing market of London. However, it contains a lot of additional relevant data: - Monthly average house prices - Yearly number of houses - Yearly number of houses sold - Yearly percentage of households that recycle - Yearly life satisfaction - Yearly median salary of the residents of the area - Yearly mean salary of the residents of the area - Monthly number of crimes committed - Yearly number of jobs - Yearly number of people living in the area - Area size in hectares

The data is split by areas of London called boroughs (a flag exists to identify these), but some of the variables have other geographical UK regions for reference (like England, North East, etc.). There have been no changes made to the data except for melting it into a long format from the original tables.

Acknowledgements

The data has been extracted from London Datastore. It is released under UK Open Government License v2 and v3. The underlining datasets can be found here: https://data.london.gov.uk/dataset/uk-house-price-index https://data.london.gov.uk/dataset/number-and-density-of-dwellings-by-borough https://data.london.gov.uk/dataset/subjective-personal-well-being-borough https://data.london.gov.uk/dataset/household-waste-recycling-rates-borough https://data.london.gov.uk/dataset/earnings-place-residence-borough https://data.london.gov.uk/dataset/recorded_crime_summary https://data.london.gov.uk/dataset/jobs-and-job-density-borough https://data.london.gov.uk/dataset/ons-mid-year-population-estimates-custom-age-tables

Cover photo by Frans Ruiter from Unsplash

Inspiration

The dataset lends itself for extensive exploratory data analysis. It could also be a great supervised learning regression problem to predict house price changes of different boroughs over time.

--- Original source retains full ownership of the source dataset ---

In 2022/23, the average household in the United Kingdom spent around 63.5 British pounds a week on food and non-alcoholic drinks, compared with 72.7 pounds in 2001/02.

This is the proportion of children aged under 16 (0-15) living in families in absolute low income during the year. The figures are based on the count of children aged under 16 (0-15) living in the area derived from ONS mid-year population estimates. The count of children refers to the age of the child at 30 June of each year.

Low income is a family whose equivalised income is below 60 per cent of median household incomes. Gross income measure is Before Housing Costs (BHC) and includes contributions from earnings, state support, and pensions. Equivalisation adjusts incomes for household size and composition, taking an adult couple with no children as the reference point. For example, the process of equivalisation would adjust the income of a single person upwards, so their income can be compared directly to the standard of living for a couple.

Absolute low income is income Before Housing Costs (BHC) in the reference year in comparison with incomes in 2010/11 adjusted for inflation. A family must have claimed one or more of Universal Credit, Tax Credits, or Housing Benefit at any point in the year to be classed as low income in these statistics. Children are dependent individuals aged under 16; or aged 16 to 19 in full-time non-advanced education. The count of children refers to the age of the child at 31 March of each year.

Data are calibrated to the Households Below Average Income (HBAI) survey regional estimates of children in low income but provide more granular local area information not available from the HBAI. For further information and methodology on the construction of these statistics, visit this link. Totals may not sum due to rounding.

Data is Powered by LG Inform Plus and automatically checked for new data on the 3rd of each month.

Data are shown by region, age, income (including equivalised) group (deciles and quintiles), economic status, socio-economic class, housing tenure, output area classification, urban and rural areas (Great Britain only), place of purchase and household composition.

This table presents data on all children living in households that have a household income below 60 per cent of the UK median household income after housing costs are paid.

Modern auctions allow mortgage buyers to take part in auctions, leading to higher bids and sales prices and attracting higher-value properties into auctions. Following the 2007-08 global financial crisis, UK auction property sales accelerated, climbing around 25% between 2010 and 2013. According to the Essential Information Group (EIG), auction volumes stayed high from 2013 to 2018, with around 20,000 yearly property auction sales taking place, but they then dipped by 10% through 2020. However, climbing UK house prices have also dragged up the average value of an auctioned property, supporting revenue growth, particularly over 2021-22. Over the five years through 2024-25, the Property Auction Houses industry's revenue is expected to climb at a compound annual rate of 8% to £433.3 million. The pandemic severely impacted auction sales, with practically no properties sold between April and June 2020, denting revenue in 2020-21. However, a stamp duty holiday encouraged a flood of properties to the market later in the year. EIG stated that despite a decrease in the number of lots offered at auctions compared to 2019, most months in 2020 saw a climb in the percentage of auction lots sold. In 2021-22, revenue skyrocketed, driven by a massive hike in the average sale price of auctioned properties and a rise in the volume of property sales by auction. Over 2023-24, cost-of-living pressures and tumbling UK house prices slashed revenue by 5.5%. In 2024-25, house prices are rising again and interest rates are set to start edging downwards, which will boost market activity. As a result, revenue is slated to rise by 3.7%. Over the five years through 2029-30, revenue is forecast to expand at a compound annual rate of 3.8% to £523.2 million. Even with rates expected to start falling, high mortgage rates will make UK properties less affordable and soften house prices in the short term. Property auction houses will benefit from increased online auction activity as consumers increasingly value and trust the faster and more convenient online model, which offers a better chance of selling their property than estate agents.

The effects of direct and indirect taxation and benefits received in cash or kind on household income, across the generations and by age.

This data is estimated by combining multiple years of the Living Costs and Food Survey from 1978 to financial year ending March 2017 and the Household Finances Statistics, from financial year ending 2018 to financial year ending 2021 with the exception of 1979 and 1981. All financial amounts are adjusted for inflation using the Consumer Prices Index including owner occupiers’ housing costs (CPIH) excluding Council Tax, to their financial year ending March 2018. For example, the mean disposable income for those aged 35 and born in the 1970’s (£35,752) is estimated by taking the average (in real terms) of the household disposable income for these people across the combined dataset.

The average agreed rent for new tenancies in the UK ranged from *** British pounds to ***** British pounds, depending on the region. On average, renters outside of London paid ***** British pounds, whereas in London, this figure amounted to ***** British pounds. Rents have been on the rise for many years, but the period after the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated this trend. Since 2015, the average rent in the UK increased by about ** percent, with about half of that gain achieved in the period after the pandemic. Why have UK rents increased so much? One of the main reasons driving up rental prices is the declining affordability of homeownership. Historically, house prices grew faster than rents, making renting more financially feasible than buying. In 2022, when the house price to rent ratio index peaked, house prices had outgrown rents by nearly ** percent since 2015. As house prices peaked in 2022, home buying slowed, exacerbating demand for rental properties and leading to soaring rental prices. How expensive is too expensive? Although there is no official requirement about the proportion of income spent on rent for it to be considered affordable, a popular rule is that rent should not exceed more than ** percent of income. In 2024, most renters in the UK exceeded that threshold, with the southern regions significantly more likely to spend upward of ** percent of their income on rent. Rental affordability has sparked a move away from the capital to other regions in the UK, such as the South East (Brighton and Southampton), the West Midlands (Birmingham) and the North West (Liverpool, Manchester, Blackpool and Preston).

Between 2018 and 2022, people in households in the ‘other’, Asian and black ethnic groups were the most likely to be in persistent low income, both before and after housing costs, out of all ethnic groups.