Families and children in the UK by family type including married couples, cohabiting couples and lone parents. Also shows household size and people living alone.

There were estimated to be approximately 28.4 million households in the United Kingdom in 2023, compared with 23.7 million households in 1996. Since the mid-1990s, there has been an increase of around four million households in the UK.

Labour Force Survey (LFS) estimates including measures of uncertainty of the number of households by household size, for England, Scotland and Wales, as well as the regions of England.

In 2023, there were approximately 7.96 million households in the United Kingdom composed of a couple with no children, which was the most common type of household arrangement in this year. The second-most common type of household were couples living with one or two dependent children, at around 5.21 million.

The General Household Survey (GHS), ran from 1971-2011 (the UKDS holds data from 1972-2011). It was a continuous annual national survey of people living in private households, conducted by the Office for National Statistics (ONS). The main aim of the survey was to collect data on a range of core topics, covering household, family and individual information. This information was used by government departments and other organisations for planning, policy and monitoring purposes, and to present a picture of households, families and people in Great Britain. In 2008, the GHS became a module of the Integrated Household Survey (IHS). In recognition, the survey was renamed the General Lifestyle Survey (GLF). The GLF closed in January 2012. The 2011 GLF is therefore the last in the series. A limited number of questions previously run on the GLF were subsequently included in the Opinions and Lifestyle Survey (OPN).

Secure Access GHS/GLF
The UKDS holds standard access End User Licence (EUL) data for 1972-2006. A Secure Access version is available, covering the years 2000-2011 - see SN 6716 General Lifestyle Survey, 2000-2011: Secure Access.

History
The GHS was conducted annually until 2011, except for breaks in 1997-1998 when the survey was reviewed, and 1999-2000 when the survey was redeveloped. Further information may be found in the ONS document An overview of 40 years of data (General Lifestyle Survey Overview - a report on the 2011 General Lifestyle Survey) (PDF). Details of changes each year may be found in the individual study documentation.

EU-SILC
In 2005, the European Union (EU) made a legal obligation (EU-SILC) for member states to collect additional statistics on income and living conditions. In addition, the EU-SILC data cover poverty and social exclusion. These statistics are used to help plan and monitor European social policy by comparing poverty indicators and changes over time across the EU. The EU-SILC requirement was integrated into the GHS/GLF in 2005. After the closure of the GLF, EU-SILC was collected via the Family Resources Survey (FRS) until the UK left the EU in 2020.

Reformatted GHS data 1973-1982 - Surrey SPSS Files
SPSS files were created by the University of Surrey for all GHS years from 1973 to 1982 inclusive. The early files were restructured and the case changed from the household to the individual with all of the household information duplicated for each individual. The Surrey SPSS files contain all the original variables as well as some extra derived variables (a few variables were omitted from the data files for 1973-76). In 1973 only, the section on leisure was not included in the Surrey SPSS files. This has subsequently been made available, however, and is now held in a separate study, General Household Survey, 1973: Leisure Questions (SN 3982). Records for the original GHS 1973-1982 ASCII files have been removed from the UK Data Archive catalogue, but the data are still preserved and available upon request.

For the third edition, a revised version of the education variable EdLev00 was added to the dataset.

Measuring and Evaluating Time-use and Electricity-use Relationships (METER) is a project collecting and depositing data on UK household electricity use, activities and other contextual and demographic information. METER seeks to improve our understanding of household electricity use, it's timing, flexibility and societal importance. By combining high-resolution household electricity readings with simultaneous activity records of household members, METER data provides a platform for new analytical insights. These include among others a more detailed understanding of socio-technical drivers behind:

• high and low electrical consumption
• high peak time consumption
• ability to respond to the load shifting interventions
• impact of interventions on individuals
• trends in electricity user over time and in response to the adoption of new technologies and social practices

Data was recorded from February 2016 to January 2019. This deposit includes 264 electricity records (28 hours each) with 16378 coded activities from 529 people.

Further information about the study can be found on the project website, on its' Gateway to Research webpage and on its' GitHub webpage.

This study is available under standard End User Licence (EUL) conditions. The Secure Access version which is the same, but includes an extra detailed activities variable, is available from the UK Data Service under SN 8475. Users are advised to first obtain this standard EUL version of the data to see if they are sufficient for their research requirements.

The average household size in London was 2.57 people per household in 2023, compared with the UK average of 2.36 people per household.

Average UK household incomes taxes and benefits by household type, tenure status, household characteristics and long-term trends in income inequality.

In 2022, the average number of people per household in the United Kingdom was 2.36 compared with 2.37 in 2020. In the mid-1990s the average household size was slightly larger at 2.42, before falling to a low of 2.36 in 2002, which with the exception of 2004, is where the average stayed until 2013 when it began to rise slightly.

In the 3 years to March 2021, black households were most likely out of all ethnic groups to have a weekly income of under £600.

Key information about UK Household Income per Capita

• United Kingdom Annual Household Income per Capita reached 34,805.008 USD in Dec 2023, compared with the previous value of 36,168.598 USD in Dec 2022.
• UK Annual Household Income per Capita data is updated yearly, available from Dec 1996 to Dec 2023, with an averaged value of 38,694.697 USD.
• The data reached an all-time high of 56,270.561 USD in Dec 2007 and a record low of 27,377.030 USD in Dec 1996.
• In the latest reports, Retail Sales of UK dropped 2.090 % YoY in May 2023.

CEIC calculates Annual Household Income per Capita from annual Average Household Income and Average Household Size and converts it into USD. Office for National Statistics provides Household Income in local currency and Average Household Size. Federal Reserve Board average market exchange rate is used for currency conversions.

The Annual Population Survey (APS) household datasets are produced annually and are available from 2004 (Special Licence) and 2006 (End User Licence). They allow production of family and household labour market statistics at local areas and for small sub-groups of the population across the UK. The household data comprise key variables from the Labour Force Survey (LFS) and the APS 'person' datasets. The APS household datasets include all the variables on the LFS and APS person datasets, except for the income variables. They also include key family and household-level derived variables. These variables allow for an analysis of the combined economic activity status of the family or household. In addition, they also include more detailed geographical, industry, occupation, health and age variables.

For further detailed information about methodology, users should consult the Labour Force Survey User Guide, included with the APS documentation. For variable and value labelling and coding frames that are not included either in the data or in the current APS documentation, users are advised to consult the latest versions of the LFS User Guides, which are available from the ONS Labour Force Survey - User Guidance webpages.

Occupation data for 2021 and 2022
The ONS has identified an issue with the collection of some occupational data in 2021 and 2022 data files in a number of their surveys. While they estimate any impacts will be small overall, this will affect the accuracy of the breakdowns of some detailed (four-digit Standard Occupational Classification (SOC)) occupations, and data derived from them. None of ONS' headline statistics, other than those directly sourced from occupational data, are affected and you can continue to rely on their accuracy. Further information can be found in the ONS article published on 11 July 2023: Revision of miscoded occupational data in the ONS Labour Force Survey, UK: January 2021 to September 2022

End User Licence and Secure Access APS data
Users should note that there are two versions of each APS dataset. One is available under the standard End User Licence (EUL) agreement, and the other is a Secure Access version. The EUL version includes Government Office Region geography, banded age, 3-digit SOC and industry sector for main, second and last job. The Secure Access version contains more detailed variables relating to:

• age: single year of age, year and month of birth, age completed full-time education and age obtained highest qualification, age of oldest dependent child and age of youngest dependent child
• family unit and household: including a number of variables concerning the number of dependent children in the family according to their ages, relationship to head of household and relationship to head of family
• nationality and country of origin
• geography: including county, unitary/local authority, place of work, Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics 2 (NUTS2) and NUTS3 regions, and whether lives and works in same local authority district
• health: including main health problem, and current and past health problems
• education and apprenticeship: including numbers and subjects of various qualifications and variables concerning apprenticeships
• industry: including industry, industry class and industry group for main, second and last job, and industry made redundant from
• occupation: including 4-digit Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) for main, second and last job and job made redundant from
• system variables: including week number when interview took place and number of households at address

The Secure Access data have more restrictive access conditions than those made available under the standard EUL. Prospective users will need to gain ONS Accredited Researcher status, complete an extra application form and demonstrate to the data owners exactly why they need access to the additional variables. Users are strongly advised to first obtain the standard EUL version of the data to see if they are sufficient for their research requirements.

This dataset provides Census 2021 estimates that classify households with usual residents in England and Wales by various household characteristics, including variations in tenure by household size, household family composition, multi-generational households, and household level information on the age, ethnic group, religion, employment status and occupation of household members. The estimates are as at Census Day, 21 March 2021.

These datasets are part of Household characteristics by tenure, England and Wales: Census 2021, a release of results from the 2021 Census for England and Wales. Figures may differ slightly in future releases because of the impact of removing rounding and applying further statistical processes.

Total counts for some household groups may not match between published tables. This is to protect the confidentiality of households' data. Household counts have been rounded to the nearest 5 and any counts below 10 were suppressed; this is signified by a 'c' in the data tables.

This dataset uses middle layer super output area (MSOA) and lower layer super output area (LSOA) geography boundaries as of 2021 and local authority district geography boundaries as of 2022.

In this dataset, the number of households in an area is broken down by different variables and categories. If you were to sum the counts of households by each variable and category, it may not sum to the total of households in that area. This is because of rounding, suppression and that some tables only include data for certain household groups.

In this dataset, variables may have different categories for different geography levels. When variables are broken down by more categories, they may not sum to the total of the higher level categories due to rounding and suppression.

Social rent is not separated into “housing association, housing co-operative, charitable trust, registered social landlord” and “council or local authority districts” because of respondent error in identifying the type of landlord. This is particularly clear in results for areas which have no local authority districts housing stock, but there are households responding as having a “council or local authority districts” landlord type. Estimates are likely to be accurate when the social rent category is combined.

The Census Quality and Methodology Information report contains important information on:

• the uses and users of the census data
• the strengths and limitations of the census data
• the quality characteristics of the census data
• the methods used to produce the census data

Quality notes can be found here

Housing quality information for Census 2021 can be found here

Household

A household is defined as one person living alone, or a group of people (not necessarily related) living at the same address who share cooking facilities and a living room, sitting room or dining area. This includes all sheltered accommodation units in an establishment (irrespective of whether there are other communal facilities) and all people living in caravans on any type of site that is their usual residence; this will include anyone who has no other usual residence elsewhere in the UK. A household must contain at least one person whose place of usual residence is at the address. A group of short-term residents living together is not classified as a household, and neither is a group of people at an address where only visitors are staying.

Usual resident

For Census 2021, a usual resident of the UK is anyone who, on Census Day, was in the UK and had stayed or intended to stay in the UK for a period of 12 months or more, or had a permanent UK address and was outside the UK and intended to be outside the UK for less than 12 months.

Household reference person (HRP)

A person who serves as a reference point, mainly based on economic activity and age, to characterize a whole household. The person is not necessarily the member of the household in whose name the accommodation is owned or rented.

Tenure

Whether a household owns or rents the accommodation that it occupies. Owner-occupied accommodation can be: owned outright, which is where the household owns all of the accommodation; owned with a mortgage or loan; or part owned on a shared ownership scheme. Rented accommodation can be private rented, for example, rented through a private landlord or letting agent; social rented through a local council or housing association; or lived in rent free, which is where the household does not own the accommodation and does not pay rent to live there, for example living in a relative or friend’s property or live-in carers or nannies. This information is not available for household spaces with no usual residents.

_Household size _

The number of usual residents in the household.

Household family composition

Households according to the relationships between members. Single-family households are classified by the number of dependent children and family type (married, civil partnership or cohabiting couple family, or lone parent family). Other households are classified by the number of people, the number of dependent children and whether the household consists only of students or only of people aged 66 years and over.

Multi-generational households

Households where people from across more than two generations of the same family live together. This includes households with grandparents and grandchildren whether or not the intervening generation also live in the household.

_Household combination of resident age _

Classifies households by the ages of household members on 21 March 2021. Households could be made up of residents aged 15 years and under; residents aged 16 to 64 years; residents aged 65 years and over; or a combination of these.

Ethnic group

The ethnic group that the person completing the census feels they belong to. This could be based on their culture, family background, identity or physical appearance. Respondents could choose one out of 19 tick-box response categories, including write-in response options. For more information, see ONS's Ethnic group, England and Wales: Census 2021 bulletin

Household combination of resident ethnic group

Classifies households by the ethnic groups household members identified with.

Religion

The religion people connect or identify with (their religious affiliation), whether or not they practice or have belief in it. This question was voluntary and includes people who identified with one of 8 tick-box response options, including 'No religion', alongside those who chose not to answer this question. For more information, see ONS's Religion, England and Wales: Census 2021 bulletin

Household combination of resident religion

Classifies households by the religious affiliation of household members who chose to answer the religion question. The classifications may include residents who did not answer the religion question.

Household combination of resident employment status

Classifies households by the employment status of household members aged 16 years and over between 15 and 21 March 2021. Households could be made up of employed residents (employee or self-employed); unemployed residents (looking for work and could start within two weeks, or waiting to start a job that had been offered and accepted); economically inactive residents (unemployed and had not looked for work between 22 February to 21 March 2021, or could not start work within two weeks); or a combination of these.

Occupation

"Classifies what people aged 16 years and over do as their main job. Their job title or details of activities they do in their job and any supervisory or management responsibilities form this classification. This information is used to code responses to an occupation using the Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) 2020. It classifies people who were in employment between 15 March and 21 March 2021, by the SOC code that represents their current occupation. The lowest level of detail available is the four-digit SOC code which includes all codes in three, two and one digit SOC code levels. Occupation classifications include :

• manager, director or senior official occupations (such as Elected Representatives and Senior Police Officers)
• professional occupations (such as Doctors and Teachers)
• associate professional and technical occupations (such as Police Officers and Counsellors)
• administrative or secretarial occupations (such as Office Managers and Receptionists)
• skilled trade occupations (such as Electricians and Chefs)
• caring, leisure or other service occupations (such as Teaching Assistants and Home Carers)
• sales and customer service occupations (such as Cashiers and Shopkeepers)
• process, plant and machine operatives (such as Bus Drivers and Scaffolders)
• elementary occupations (such as Postal Workers and Waiters)"

Households in the eighth and ninth deciles had, on average, 2.0 adults. This was the highest number of adults of any decile group. Households in the bottom decile group had, on average, 1.5 adults. This was the lowest number of adults of any decile group.