Following large transfers of Social Housing stock from the Public Sector over the past twenty years, Housing Associations are now the major provider of social housing in the UK. The largest own thousands of houses but at the other end of the scale are very small organisations such as ancient Almshouse Charities, each owning a cottage or two and overseen by a part time Chairman or a Secretary.

The legal status and ownership of Housing Associations and Trusts is often complex. In some instances, a single management team may manage two or more Housing Associations which are distinct legal entities, for example one Charitable and one non-Charitable.

Housing Associations vary in the scope of their operations. The largest may cater for all types of tenants requiring public housing, whilst many of the smaller ones may cater for specific groups, for example, elderly residents of a certain parish or retired miners. The YMCAs and Foyers provide housing accommodation for single young people whilst the Abbeyfield Societies are voluntary bodies providing sheltered accommodation or nursing homes for the elderly.

How the data is organised:

Parent/Subsidiary Organisations - Housing Associations are regularly merging and renaming themselves. They are often managed in complex groups, with parent and subsidiaries organisations, some sharing their corporate management. Where there is a shared management team across a group, we list these contacts at the group organisation and not against each subsidiary, in order to avoid duplication.

Principal Contact - One person at each Association is identified as the "Chief Officer". In larger organisations this will normally be the Chief Executive or Director. In smaller Associations, it may be the Secretary or occasionally the Chairman, as requested by each organisation.

Job Functions - In addition to the Chief Officers we list a large number of other management posts. Due to the variety of job titles among Associations, we categorise by job function to identify responsibilities.

Units Owned/Managed - As well as recording the organisational structures, we also record the number of "units" each organisation owns/manages. "Units" can be anything from a detached house to a flat or a room or bed space in a nursing home or hostel.

Households from the Black Caribbean, Mixed White and Black Caribbean, and Bangladeshi ethnic groups were most likely to rent social housing in the 2 years from April 2021 to March 2023.

Social housing providers offer hosing to people with a low income or in need of extra support. As of February 2025, there were roughly 1,600 social housing providers registered in the United Kingdom (UK), the largest share of which are non-profit (1,284), followed by Local authorities (229) and for-profit companies (78). Non-profit social housing providers are predominantly registered societies and charitable companies.

Number of households waiting for local authority housing.

Local authorities sometimes maintain a common waiting list with the Housing Association/s in their district. However, no information is available where a Housing Association maintains a separate waiting list to the local authority. Direct comparisons between authorities' housing waiting lists can be misleading in particular because authorities have different arrangements for checking that applicants continue to require housing and their policies and practices can change over time.

The introduction of choice-based approaches to the letting of social housing (whereby applicants have more of a say and choice over where they live) has had an impact on the size of the waiting list. Choice-based lettings (CBL) has led to increases in the number of households on the waiting lists, including those groups which are traditionally under-represented in social housing, e.g. people in employment. The accuracy of the list also depends on the extent to which housing authorities keep the register up-to-date, e.g. some people might already have found housing, yet remain on the list. The introduction of CBL and the removal of the statutory duty to maintain a register have taken away much of the rationale for regularly reviewing the waiting list.

However, it was anticipated that housing authorities would continue to maintain a waiting list of housing applicants in order to perform their allocation function properly.
The districts, unitary authorities and counties listed above are based on 1 April 1998 boundaries. Figures for any "new" re-organised areas have been estimated retrospectively applying the new boundaries back to 1996, making appropriate assumptions for any county re-organisation which involved cutting across districts.

Some earlier years' data might have changed based on updated figures in later years' returns.

Latest available mid-year household estimates for the districts used.

Data for each year are from the year in which they were reported. For example, 2007/08 data is from HSSA 2007/08 returns.

View live tables on rents and tenancies on DCLG website

In the year ending in March 2024, lead tenants from the Black ethnic group made up 7.8% of new social housing lettings and 3.9% of the overall population of England aged 16 and over.

Private companies were responsible for most of the new homes built in the United Kingdom (UK) 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.

Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.

The Survey of English Housing (SEH) was a continuous annual survey series, which began in 1993. The survey provided key housing data on tenure, owner occupation and the social rented sector, and regular information about the private rented sector. The survey was originally sponsored by the Department of the Environment, which became the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions in time for the 1996-1997 survey, then the Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions, by 2000-2001. Responsibility for the SEH was transferred to the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister after the fieldwork for the 2002-2003 survey commenced, and on 5 May 2006 the series became part of the remit of the newly-established Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG).

The main aims of the SEH were to provide regular information about the main features of people's housing and their views about their circumstances, and information about the private rented sector (not covered by routine administrative statistics like the owner-occupied and social rented sectors).

From 2008, the SEH merged with the English House Condition Survey (EHCS) to form the new English Housing Survey (EHS). The last SEH dataset is the 2007-2008 study. The EHS data are available at the UK Data Archive under GN 33422.

Further information about the SEH and the EHS may be found on the DCLG web site Survey of English Housing and English Housing Survey web pages.

Main Topics:

The SEH comprises a main core of factual questions that remain largely unchanged from year to year, and cover tenure, housing costs and difficulties with mortgage/rent payments, housing history, moving intentions, and the type of home desired. The survey also carries a set of attitudinal questions which are revised/rotated each year.

The 1995-1996 dataset contains six datafiles relating to different units of analysis: household file - information about each sampled household interviewed; individual file - information about each individual in each household interviewed; family unit file - information about each family unit in each household interviewed; waiting list file - information about each waiting list group in each household interviewed; private renting tenancy group file - information about each private renting tenancy group; tenancy group individual file - information about each individual in each tenancy group interviewed. Topics covered include:

Household Interview:
All households: demographic data; type of accommodation; second homes; tenure.
Tenants: subletting; rooms and accommodation characteristics; sharing; moves and housing history; repossessions; social sector housing waiting lists; homelessness; satisfaction with present accommodation; problems with neighbours; residents' associations; features of the area; improvements to the area; underoccupation; security of tenure; preferred accommodation; satisfaction with the area.
Owners: previous experience of owning; trading up and trading down; source and amount of present mortgage; mortgage arrears; interest in renting.
Social sector renters: interest in buying; grants and schemes to help tenants buy; experience of owning; housing benefit and rent; rent arrears; tenants' rights and relationship with landlord; views about different types of landlord; tenants' charter; employment; homeworking; occupation; income.

Private Renters' Module:
Tenancy group composition; tenancy characteristics; rent and housing benefit; services included in rent; securing the accommodation; rent arrears; first application for housing benefit; finding the accommodation; pre-tenancy rent determinations for housing benefit; relations with landlord; moves in last three years; buying/moving intentions; employment of head of tenancy group; income, and income from government schemes, self employment, employment, second jobs, pensions, regular payments, savings, maintenance payments, state benefits and other sources; tax paid, total net and gross income of individual and tenancy group.

Standard Measures
Standard Occupation Coding.

The English Housing Survey (EHS) is a continuous national survey commissioned by the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) that collects information about people's housing circumstances and the condition and energy efficiency of housing in England. The EHS brings together two previous surveys into a single fieldwork operation: the English House Condition Survey (EHCS) (available from the UK Data Archive under GN 33158) and the Survey of English Housing (SEH) (available from the Archive under GN 33277). The EHS covers all housing tenures and provides valuable information and evidence to inform the development and monitoring of the department's housing policies. Results from the survey are also used by a wide range of other users including other government departments, local authorities, housing associations, landlords, academics, construction industry professionals, consultants, and the general public. The EHS has a complex multi-stage methodology consisting of two main elements; an initial interview survey of around 14,000 households and a follow-up physical inspection. Some further elements are also periodically included in or derived from the EHS: for 2008 and 2009, a desk-based market valuation was conducted of a sub-sample of 8,000 dwellings (including vacant ones), but this was not carried out from 2010 onwards. A periodic follow-up survey of private landlords and agents (the Private Landlords Survey (PLS)) is conducted using information from the EHS interview survey. Fuel Poverty datasets are also available from 2003, created by the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC).

The EHS interview survey sample formed part of the Integrated Household Survey (IHS) (available from the Archive under GN 33420) from April 2008 to April 2011. During this period the core questions from the IHS formed part of the EHS questionnaire.

The EHS is used to derive two types of datasets: Household and Housing Stock. These are available separately for the End User Licence (EUL) and Special Licence (SL) versions, but are combined into one study for the Secure Access EHS:

• Household datasets comprise the full interview data (plus associated derived variables) for all cases where an interview has been completed. Datasets are provided for single financial years together with annual weights. The survey consists of a detailed interview using a CAPI based program. An interview is first conducted with the householder. Household datasets should be used for any analysis where only information from the household interview is required.
• Housing Stock data are available for all cases where a physical survey has been completed. For occupied properties, the datasets include data from the household interview as well as data from the physical survey. For vacant properties, only data for the physical survey are provided. The data are made available for a two year rolling sample i.e. approximately 12,000 cases together with the appropriate 2-year weights. This means that if you use more than one housing stock dataset, you must use either odd or even years. For example, you need to use the Housing Stock Dataset for '2012' and '2014' or '2013' and '2015', but not the dataset for '2014' and '2013' as you would double-count the cases surveyed between April 2013 and March 2014. The Housing Stock datasets should be used for any analysis requiring information relating to the physical characteristics and energy efficiency of the housing stock. Derived datasets provide key analytical variables compiled post-fieldwork including energy efficiency ratings, decent home indicators and equivalised income.

Secure Access EHS data:
Secure Access datasets for the EHS up to 2013/14 are available under UK Data Archive SN 6923 and include two detailed geographical variables that are not available in the standard EUL versions: Postcodes and Lower Layer Super Output Areas. These variables have been merged into the General derived data file within each Household and Housing Stock dataset. The two variables are also available in a separate Detailed Geography data file, along with the key variable 'aacode', allowing the user to merge with other files of their choice. All other files are the same as in the EUL versions. Secure Access datasets for the EHS from 2014/15 are available under Archive SN 8121. From the submission of the 2014/15 datasets onwards, the EHS Secure Access approach was changed by the Department of Communities and Local Government (DCLG). The Postcode and Lower Layer Super Output Area variables remain available and DCLG also provide versions of the full EHS datasets as used internally, i.e. not disclosure controlled, for Secure Access. For the 2015/16 datasets, the Secure Access version includes the Special Licence version data also available under SNs 8254 and 8255, as well as detailed geography files containing postcodes and Lower Layer Super Output Area variables.

Prospective users of the Secure Access version of the EHS will need to fulfil additional requirements, commencing with the completion of extra application forms to demonstrate to the data owners exactly why they need access to the extra, more detailed variables, in order to obtain permission to use that version. Secure Access users must also complete face-to-face training and agree to Secure Access' User Agreement and Licence Compliance Policy (see 'Access' section below). Therefore, users are encouraged to download and inspect the EUL and/or Special Licence versions of the data prior to ordering a Secure Access version.

Related UK Data Archive studies:
EUL versions of the EHS studies are available under GN 33422, and further details and links for these can be found via the EHS list of datasets. From 2014/15 data onwards, the EUL versions of the EHS only include derived variables. In addition the number of variables on the new EUL datasets has been reduced and disclosure control increased on certain remaining variables. New Special Licence versions of the EHS have been deposited, which are of a similar nature to previous EHS EUL datasets and include derived and raw datasets. Special Licence versions of the data from 2014/15 onwards are available under Archive GN 33515.

Further information about the EHS and the latest news, reports and tables can be found on the GOV.UK English Housing Survey web pages.
Latest edition
For the third edition (February 2018), data and documentation for 2015-16 have been added.

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

The number of housing units in Wales whose construction was completed in 2023 was much higher than in 2019. Most new housing was completed by private enterprises, with those built by housing associations only making up a small share of all completions.