Private rental prices development plan, UK: updated April 2025

• We completed the last major milestone in our private rental price statistics transformation in March 2025, expanding the Price Index of Private Rents (PIPR) coverage to the UK.

• This transformation enabled us to publish, for the first time, rent price levels for the UK and Northern Ireland, including breakdowns by property type and bedroom category, and at the more granular broad rental market area level for Northern Ireland.

• Our previous release outlined our intentions for addressing the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR)'s requirements from their Spotlight on Quality Assessment: Price Index of Private Rents (PIPR) report.

• This release updates users on progress towards addressing these requirements; we intend to update this release quarterly during 2025.

This development plan is a dynamic article that will be updated regularly. Updates will be announced to users through the Private rent and house prices, UK bulletin.

We unified our private rental prices' statistics by replacing the Index of Private Housing Rental Prices (IPHRP) and the Private rental market summary statistics in England (PRMS) bulletins with a new monthly housing statistical bulletin, Private rent and house prices, UK, in March 2024. Price Index of Private Rents (PIPR) methodology was used for Great Britain rents and IPHRP methodology continued to be used for Northern Ireland rents, from March 2024.

Northern Ireland was incorporated into PIPR, aligning the methodology used for private rents across the UK and providing more detailed insight into the rental market for Northern Ireland, in March 2025. The Price Index of Private Rents Quality and Methodology Information (QMI) and Quality assurance of administrative data (QAAD) used in the Price Index of Private Rents methodology were simultaneously updated to reflect the inclusion of Northern Ireland in PIPR, and to address some of the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR)'s quality assessment requirements.

Inflation measures

The Consumer Prices Index including owner occupiers' housing (OOH) costs (CPIH) is the Office for National Statistics' (ONS's) lead measure of consumer prices inflation. Before March 2025, PIPR statistics for Great Britain were used to inform the OOH costs element of the CPIH, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) lead measure of consumer prices inflation, as well as the "actual rentals for housing" aspect of the Consumer Prices Index (CPI) and CPIH, and "rent" in the Retail Prices Index (RPI). Verian (previously Kantar) data were used to measure Northern Ireland rents inflation in consumer prices statistics.

PIPR statistics are used to measure Northern Ireland (as well as Great Britain) rents inflation in consumer prices statistics, aligning the measurement of rents inflation across the UK, from March 2025.

Quality-focused assessment by the Office for Statistics Regulation

We requested a quality-focused assessment of our PIPR by the OSR in 2024. This was the first step towards achieving accredited official statistics status. The OSR published their Spotlight on Quality Assessment: Price Index of Private Rents (PIPR) report in October 2024, which included requirements for the ONS to address before submitting PIPR for a full assessment.

Our previous release outlined our intentions for addressing these requirements. This release provides progress updates for users.

Types of data submissions

The Officer for National Statistics (ONS) engaged with the devolved administrations who collect data. They provided estimates of the proportion of the respective data collection which are derived from "bulk" or "Tenancy Deposit Protection (TDP)-informed" collection methods. This information for each country was published in March 2025 in the Price Index of Private Rents Quality and Methodology Information (QMI).

Agreed and advertised rents data

Rents data for England and Wales are 100% agreed rents, while data for Northern Ireland are 100% advertised rents.

Scottish Government's Private Sector Rent Statistics, Scotland, 2010 to 2024 publication reports: "In the latest year to end September 2024, an estimated 80% of Rent Service Scotland Market Evidence records were based on advertised rents, with the remainder being based on transactional data received from letting agents or landlords. Note that it is likely that a proportion of the transactional data received will also relate to recently advertised rents, where the records received relate to tenancies which have only been recently advertised or let." 

Meeting expected monthly volumes

ONS is engaging with the data providers, aiming to obtain permission to publish data collection volumes by month, by property type and geography. This would enable users to monitor monthly data collection progress towards the annual data collection target of 500,000 rents across the UK.

Quality and representativeness of Price Index of Private Rents statistics

There are three stages to producing statistics which are representative of the rental stock.

Stage 1 is the monthly data collection of rents data. The data providers make an assessment of a "representative" sample of rental stock for each category (using sources such as census data), which informs annual targets for data collection.

Stage 2 is Price Index of Private Rents (PIPR)'s 14-month dataset used in the regression model, which represents the rental stock at that point in time. This is explained in our How we measure rental price inflation blog post. PIPR uses all rents data collected in the last 14 months, using only the latest available record for each property (so there is one record per property, even if updates had been received multiple times for that property within the 14-month period). The regression model uses this dataset to quantify the relationship between property characteristics and rent price at that point in time.

Stage 3 is PIPR's annual expenditure weights. These weights are calculated annually at the most granular level: local authority (England and Wales) or broad rental market area (Scotland and Northern Ireland), by property type, and by furnished status. These weights are calculated using dwelling stock survey data and price data sourced from several government departments. An indicative summary is published annually. More information is in the "Expenditure weights" subsection of Section 6: Methods used to produce the PIPR data in our PIPR QMI, to which additional explanation was added in March 2025.

We published further information in the PIPR QMI and Quality assurance of administrative data (QAAD) used in the Price Index of Private Rents methodology describing the devolved administrations' monthly data collection, PIPR's 14-month dataset representing the stock, and annual expenditure weights, in March 2025.

In addition, the ONS is engaging with the devolved administrations, seeking permission to publish more detail on PIPR's 14-month dataset to support users' understanding of the quality and representativeness of the data used by PIPR's regression model to produce PIPR price estimates representative of the rental stock.

More technical information on methods and source data quality

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) added additional information on Price Index of Private Rent (PIPR)'s methods in the Price Index of Private Rents QMI to meet this requirement in March 2025, including:

• how PIPR's methodology is applied to each UK country, confirming that the PIPR methodology works in the same way for each UK country

• how PIPR's annual expenditure weights are calculated, and from which data sources

• a link to subsection "12.4.2 Chain-linking" in our Consumer Prices Indices Technical Manual, 2019 methodology, which describes the standard chain-linking methodology used in our price statistics (including in PIPR, UK House Price Index and Retail Price Index)

• an explanation of how the same standard chain-linking method was used to create a historical rent statistics series by chain-linking Index of Private Housing Rental Prices (IPHRP) to PIPR in January 2015 to meet user requests for a historical rent series going back as far as possible

• a formal two-month revision period policy for PIPR's UK-level (only) statistics, because of the two-month lag of Northern Ireland data availability; this two-month revision policy applies to the UK-level series only and is also transparently reported in our Private rent and house prices, UK bulletin

Since our previous Private rental prices development plan, UK: updated January 2025 article, the ONS has engaged with the UK Statistics Authority (the Authority), the Advisory Panel for Consumer Prices (APCP) Panel members, and with the devolved administrations. The ONS successfully obtained permission to publish previously-redacted APCP materials relating to rents development, including technical papers outlining regression models considered and rationale behind the model selection. These were published in March 2025 on the Authority's website, meeting technical user needs. This includes the October 2021 Redeveloping Private Rental Market Price Statistics technical paper (PDF, 1,533KB), which outlines various hedonic regression models that were considered for use in PIPR, the relative strengths and weaknesses of these methods, and rationale behind why the selected model was chosen for PIPR.

We intend to publish additional materials to meet technical and non-technical user needs, such as technical articles, blogs, or worked examples for non-expert users.

Our previous release summarised the APCP Technical Panel's July 2023 paper (PDF, 452KB) and independent feedback, which clarifies why the same methodology is used for each UK country despite differences in data collection.

We are engaging with the data providers, aiming to obtain permission to publish more information on data collection volumes and distribution, and data volumes and distribution of the 14-month dataset used by PIPR's regression model.

Rationale for combining Price Index of Private Rents and Index of Private Housing Rental Prices estimates

Price Index of Private Rents (PIPR) estimates were available for Great Britain (GB) and Index of Private Housing Rental Prices (IPHRP) estimates were available for Northern Ireland (NI), from March 2024 to February 2025. During this period, to continue publishing private rent price statistics for the UK, PIPR GB estimates were aggregated with IPHRP NI estimates to produce UK estimates. This was done using the standard index weighted-aggregation method used in other ONS price indices, including in the Consumer Price Index (CPI) and Consumer Price Index including owner occupiers' housing costs (CPIH).

Annual expenditure weights were produced for the UK and were used respectively for PIPR GB and IPHRP NI. An indicative summary of the weights used to aggregate the Great Britain and Northern Ireland indices to produce UK indices during this period was published in the 20 March 2024 edition of the Price Index of Private Rents, UK: annual weights dataset.

Without using this standard aggregation approach, it would not have been possible for ONS to have continued publishing UK-level private rent price statistics during this period. This approach was therefore vital to meet users' need for continued UK rent statistics.

All UK countries' private rent statistics are produced using PIPR methodology from March 2025. PIPR GB and PIPR NI statistics continue to be aggregated using the same standard method to produce PIPR UK statistics. An indicative summary of the annual weights used by PIPR continues to be published annually.

User feedback summary

Feedback received from users and stakeholders during Price Index of Private Rents (PIPR) development, and while PIPR has been in regular production, is summarised in this section. This feedback is from emails to hpi@ons.gov.uk, cross-government meetings, Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR)'s user engagement, and public webinars.

We will keep users informed of the outcome of their requests via the Private rent and house prices, UK bulletin and the Private rental prices development plan, UK article by updating the "response" provided.

New data

Users requested:

• breakdown by regions within Wales

Response:

• Our Price Index of Private Rents, UK: monthly price statistics dataset includes a breakdown of Wales by local authority.

Users requested:

• PIPR estimates at postcode level

Response:

• It is not possible to publish PIPR estimates at postcode level because of too much volatility in estimates at this level.

Users requested:

• rent price at median and lower, upper quartiles, and median rent at local level, by property type and bedroom category

Response:

• For median and quartiles data, we are engaging with other government departments to identify user requirements and how to address those needs.

Users requested:

• estimates at additional breakdowns; for example, counties, UK excluding London, new versus existing tenancies

Response:

• We are considering producing additional aggregation levels (such as counties and UK excluding London).

• We cannot produce a PIPR breakdown by "new" and "existing" tenancies because available rents data do not include the data required, as explained in the "Coherence" subsection of Section 5: Quality characteristics of the PIPR data the Price Index of Private Rents QMI and in our How we measure rental price inflation blog.

Users requested:

• a longer time series of rents data

Response:

• We assessed the feasibility of producing a longer time series and in our Private rent and house prices, UK: June 2024 bulletin we informed users that PIPR could not be extended before 2015; to produce the longest time series possible for users, we chain-linked Index of Private Housing Rental Prices (IPHRP) to PIPR to publish our Price Index of Private Rents, UK: historical series dataset, as explained in our Price Index of Private Rents QMI.

Users requested:

• rent price per square metre

Response:

• We will assess the feasibility and resource requirements that would be needed to develop a system capable of producing rent per square metre.

Data presentation

Users requested:

• highlight the countries and regions with highest and lowest rents

Response:

• Our monthly Private rent and house prices, UK bulletin provides commentary on the countries' average rent, and regions and local areas with highest and lowest average rent.

• Our Housing prices in your area interactive tool shows rent prices at local level compared with national level.

Users requested:

• the PIPR monthly dataset to be split into several tables similar to IPHRP as they had difficulty in navigating and finding information

Response:

• Our full Price Index of Private Rents, UK: monthly price statistics dataset has been developed to meet wider government data accessibility standards.

• Our Price Index of Private Rents, UK: historical series dataset is in IPHRP-style format to support users who prefer that style; this contains country and region level rents statistics only to meet accessibility requirements.

• Our Housing prices in your area interactive tool provides users with a simpler way to navigate PIPR Great Britain statistics, and we are working to include Northern Ireland in the coming months.

User requested:

• quality indicators to be included on Scotland and Northern Ireland series, and caveats to be included in data downloads and embedded in relevant charts

Response:

• There are extensive user warnings within PIPR materials to explain to users any data issues that they need to be aware of.

• The Price Index of Private Rents QMI was updated in March 2025, including information on coherence and comparability across the UK.

• User warnings relating to differences in data collection across countries are embedded in the monthly bulletin, downloadable datasets and Housing prices in your area interactive tool; the warnings are also included as footnotes to relevant charts, all providing sufficient access to support user understanding.

Raw data

Users requested:

• publication of rents microdata

Response:

• Strict data sharing agreements and disclosure protections prohibit any further sharing. We are unable to provide users with access to the rental microdata.

Number of rents

Users requested:

• the number of rental properties in any geographic area

• counts of rents by property type or bedroom category

• distribution of rents and the PIPR 14-month sample

Response:

• We publish Subnational estimates of dwellings and households by tenure, England, and other government departments publish estimates of the proportion of properties by property type.

• Rents data used by PIPR reflect a sample of rented properties, so PIPR data volumes by geography, property type or bedroom category would not reflect the total number of rented properties in that category.

• We are engaging with the data providers, aiming to obtain permission to publish more information on PIPR data volumes. More detail is in Section 3: Publish more information on data collection and quality monitoring (requirement 1).

Methods clarity

Users requested:

• that the methodology needs to be clearer to understand; there are too many acronyms and complicated words

• more details on the application of the methodology, including a worked example

• further information on PIPR weighting and the methodology used

• further clarification regarding chain-linking and its use to link IPHRP to PIPR

Response:

• The Price Index of Private Rents QMI was updated in March 2025, including details on data sources and methods used to calculate PIPR weights and additional details to support users' understanding of PIPR methods.

• Our How we measure rental price inflation blog explains how rental prices are used in PIPR with a worked example.

• We will provide further accessible explanations of PIPR methods later in 2025, such as an online video explainer.

• The "Aggregation of elementary aggregates" subsection of Section 6: Methods used to produce the PIPR data in our Price Index of Private Rents QMI explains the standard chain-linking approach used by ONS in price inflation statistics.

• The "Creation of a historical series" subsection of Section 6: Methods used to produce the PIPR data in our Price Index of Private Rents QMI explains how IPHRP was chain-linked to PIPR to produce the longest time series possible.

Stock versus flow measures

Users requested:

• comparison of PIPR with external measures

• explanations of the 14-month approach, to address user uncertainty around assumptions and whether PIPR estimates are representative

• a clear and explicit explanation of the perceived "lag" in PIPR estimates

Response:

• The PIPR is designed to be a stock-based measure that reflects all rents, not just new rents.

• We publish an annual comparison between PIPR and private (advertised rents) measures to help users understand differences.

• Our Measuring rents: stock versus flow blog explains the difference between a stock-based measure and flow-based measure.

• The Price Index of Private Rents QMI was updated in March 2025 to better explain PIPR methods, including how the 14-month validity period is used to approximate a stock-based measure of rental price inflation that reflects the average of all rents.

• The QMI update also made clearer that we always use the latest available price for a given property and do not use older prices for the same property if more recent data is available.

• We also published a How we measure rental price inflation blog to explain how the 14-month validity period is used to estimate a stock-based measure of rental inflation in PIPR.

How to use Private Index of Private Rents

Users requested:

• more information on how to use PIPR data; for example, a user guide

• that strengths and limitations should be made clearer

• that quality indicators should be included on the Scotland and Northern Ireland series

Response:

• The Price Index of Private Rents QMI and Quality assurance of administrative data used in the Price Index of Private Rents methodology were updated in March 2025, which included additional detail on PIPR's strengths and limitations, and coherence and comparability.

• The Private rent and house prices, UK bulletin also includes strengths and limitations information and user warnings on differences in data collection across the UK.

• Our "User engagement strategy" in this section sets out our intentions to provide more accessible explanations of PIPR's methods, including online video explainers and a webinar.

• We are considering whether further actions could be taken to make strengths and limitations clearer.

General

Users requested:

• effects or predicted effects of rental caps and rental controls

Response:

• ONS' priority is the production of high quality data and is willing to offer guidance to researchers who want to investigate the link between specific housing market policies and outcomes for rents. There are a wide range of other bodies that produce such research.

• Rent price-increase caps and adjudication measures implemented in Scotland in recent years were restricted to existing tenancies, not to new rents.

• To estimate any potential effect of such measures, we would need to measure the inflation of existing rents and of new rents over time.

• Unfortunately, available rents data do not include the data required to separately measure new and existing rents inflation rates (as explained in the "Coherence" subsection of Section 5: Quality characteristics of the PIPR data in the Price Index of Private Rents QMI and in our How we measure rental price inflation blog), so we cannot complete such analysis.

Users requested:

• use of Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) rating to model rent changes based on EPC category

Response:

• It is standard practice to intermittently review methodologies of statistics in live production.

• We will consider whether these data could be made available for use in PIPR for all UK countries as part of the next review.

Users requested:

• the inclusion of confidence intervals in PIPR statistics

Response:

• This is a complicated request for an index and there is wider ongoing research investigating the feasibility of producing confidence intervals for the Consumer Price Index (CPI).

• If this research yields a successful method to produce confidence intervals, we may be able to apply a similar methodology for PIPR as a long-term future development.

Users requested:

• the ONS website is challenging and it is difficult to locate PIPR

Response:

• Thank you for this feedback; ONS is undergoing a wider website transformation, which will include PIPR's publication.

Users requested:

• link bedroom data with household data to measure the impact on people and dynamics within households

Response:

• Our available rents data is for individual properties, not individual households, so it is not possible to produce PIPR estimates by household.

• We have previously published analysis on changes in private rental sector behaviour observed at the rental property level.

User engagement strategy

This section contains our user engagement plan for the Price Index of Private Rents (PIPR), including the engagement activity we are planning, how these activities align with each PIPR engagement objective, and a target deadline for completion. It also highlights some of the ongoing general cross-government engagement we are already doing.

There are three objectives for this PIPR engagement plan that develops our external engagement strategy in line with the OSR recommendations. While the focus is on engagement around the PIPR, many of the actions will also support improvements with the wider housing market and housing statistics.

This engagement strategy will support the ongoing assessment of how well PIPR is meeting user needs, and support users of PIPR and its use in wider housing market statistics. We will be looking to utilise more accessible methods of engagement to ensure all users of our statistics better understand how they are compiled, how they are used, and can give feedback to the ONS as necessary.

As we develop our engagement strategy, we welcome input from users on engagement methods which support their use of PIPR. Please email us at hpi@ons.gov.uk.

Objective 1: set out a plan for regular and improved engagement with all users, for Price Index of Private Rents

Activity 1a: Put forward the Price Index of Private Rents (PIPR) statistical bulletin as a use case for wider ONS website improvements in generating real-time feedback.

• Deadline: November 2025

• Status: Depends on wider ONS website transformation

Activity 1b: Create, promote and manage a dedicated PIPR (also wider housing market) group on the new StatsUserNetwork. This will be part of the existing Prices and Inflation group.

• Deadline: May 2025

• Status: Depends on the launch of the new StatsUserNetwork

Activity 1c: Commitment to make better use of media channels to support users understanding of housing statistics, starting with an explainer blog on the use of rental prices in PIPR.

• Deadline: Ongoing

• Status: Status: Initial How we measure rental price inflation blog was published on 1 April 2025, which explains how rental prices are used in PIPR

Activity 1d: Use online video explainers to support user understanding of PIPR methods.

• Deadline: September 2025

• Status: Aiming to develop material over the summer

Activity 1e: Arrange a dedicated PIPR webinar to discuss the transformation of our rental statistics.

• Deadline: November 2025

• Status: To start

Objective 2: clarify how we will generate feedback on Price Index of Private Rents and assess how well it is meeting user needs

Activity 2a: Dedicated user feedback questionnaire to be published alongside the Price Index of Private Rents (PIPR) bulletin, to ask users about how well PIPR meets their needs.

• Deadline: July 2025

• Status: To start

Activity 2b: Follow up user questionnaire to be published to ask users how their feedback has been met by the ONS.

• Deadline: March 2026

• Status: Depends on July 2025 user questionnaire (2a) and subsequent ONS response (3c).

Activity 2c: Cross-government housing statistics working group; a government wide forum that meets quarterly to discuss housing statistics.

• Deadline: Ongoing

• Status: Quarterly meeting

Activity 2d: Private rental market statistics subgroup; a subgroup of the wider housing statistics working group, with a focus on rental statistics.

• Deadline: Ongoing

• Status: Quarterly meeting

Activity 2e: Prices analysts cross-government group; a quarterly government group discussing developments with inflation statistics.

• Deadline: Ongoing

• Status: Quarterly meeting

Activity 2f: National Statistician advisory panels, stakeholder and technical. Two panels that meet quarterly to discuss consumer inflation, including rents and housing.

• Deadline: Ongoing

• Status: Quarterly meeting

Objective 3: clarify how we will assess and respond to the feedback, including evaluating the "in development" status of the Price Index of Private Rents

Activity 3a: Regular update of the Private rental prices development plan, UK article. This will be the main mechanism, along with the Price Index of Private Rent (PIPR) statistical bulletin to provide users with updates on PIPR engagement and our work to respond to OSR requirements.

• Deadline: Ongoing

• Status: Latest update was 1 April 2025

Activity 3b: A clear "you said, we did" response setting out how user responses to the OSR are either being met, in development or unable to be met, with clear rationale.

• Deadline: April 2025

• Status: Complete; user feedback is published in this section.

Activity 3c: Publish a formal ONS response to the user questionnaire (2a) setting out a summary of the responses and the action being taken by the ONS.

• Deadline: October 2025

• Status: Depends on 2a

Activity 3d: The QMI and QAAD to be substantively updated to reflect the introduction of Northern Ireland data, to address user feedback from the OSR review, and to address user feedback.

• Deadline: April 2025

• Status: Complete; published in the March 2025 updates of the Price Index of Private Rents QMI and Quality assurance of administrative data (QAAD) used in the Price Index of Private Rents methodology.

Further planned improvements to Private Index of Private Rents

Feedback received from users and stakeholders is summarised in Section 5: Publish a summary of user feedback and plans for future user engagement (requirement 3). In some cases, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has already taken action to meet these user requests, and some requests may be met during planned future work. The "response" provided will be updated with the latest developments to keep users informed of the outcome of their request.

Plans for evaluating "in development" status of Price Index of Private Rents

In Section 5: Publish a summary of user feedback and plans for future user engagement (requirement 3) of this article, we set out ONS's engagement plan for the Price Index of Private Rents (PIPR). Objective 3 specifically focuses on how the ONS will evaluate PIPR's "in development" status, though all aspects of the engagement plan are aimed at addressing the requirements set out in the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) report.

This development plan will be used to provide updates on our engagement plan, how we will respond to user feedback and other updates. We will also explore other forms of communication to provide users with more accessible updates.

Several materials were presented to the Advisory Panel on Consumer Prices (APCP) panels during the Office for National Statistics (ONS)' private rental price statistics transformation work. Most materials relating to Price Index of Private Rent (PIPR)'s development was redacted from publication at the time because of market sensitivity of the ongoing development work and its link to consumer price statistics.

We have engaged with the UK Statistics Authority, the APCP technical panel, and with the devolved administrations, since the January 2025 release. The publication status of the historical materials was reassessed and the APCP technical panel agreed with ONS' recommendation that these materials should now be published. Following this, ONS successfully obtained permission from the data owners to publish previously unpublished APCP papers relating to rents development in recent years. Previously-redacted APCP Technical Panel materials were published on the UK Statistics Authority's website in March 2025.

Future timeline dates are estimates and subject to change. Project milestones for 2025 include:

• publishing ONS' response to the OSR's recommendations, January 2025: complete

• publishing impact analysis for Northern Ireland transformation, January 2025: complete

• publishing decision on incorporation into official statistics, early 2025: complete

• publishing bulletin with Price Index of Private Rents (PIPR) covering all UK, March 2025: complete

• regular publishing of progress updates addressing Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR)'s requirements, 2025: ongoing

• user engagement following launch of PIPR UK, 2025: detailed in Section 5: Publish a summary of user feedback and plans for future user engagement (requirement 3)

• publishing of next progress update: July 2025