Subnational estimates of dwellings and households by tenure, England: 2023

• Of the 25.4 million dwellings in England, 62.4% (15.9 million) were owner occupied, 20.8% (5.3 million) were privately rented, and 16.7% (4.2 million) were socially rented, in 2023.
• Castle Point and Rochford, both in the East of England, had the highest percentage of owner-occupied dwellings (80.6%), and Tower Hamlets, in Inner London, had the lowest (27.5%).
• North Norfolk was the local authority with the highest proportion of dwellings owned outright (49.8%); Wokingham had the highest proportion of dwellings owned with a mortgage or a loan (42.3%).
• City of London (51.8%) followed by Westminster (47.9%) had the highest proportion of privately rented dwellings, and North East Derbyshire had the lowest (10.3%).
• Islington had the highest percentage of socially rented dwellings, at 38.9%, while Castle Point had the lowest proportion, at 5.3%.

This analysis uses a model-based method to produce estimates of tenure for households and dwellings for local authority (LA) areas in England in 2022 and 2023, based on a combination of Census 2021 estimates, administrative data, and survey data.

We estimate that there were 23.7 million households living in 25.4 million dwellings across all LAs in England in 2023.

Just under two-thirds (62.4%) of those 25.4 million dwellings were estimated to be owner-occupied in 2023. Our analysis breaks the national figure down into four tenures, including:

• 8.3 million dwellings (32.6%) that were owned outright
• 7.6 million (29.8%) that were owned with a mortgage or a loan
• 5.3 million (20.8%) that were privately rented
• 4.2 million (16.7%) that were socially rented, mainly rented from housing associations and LAs

This article analyses dwellings by tenure. Data about households by tenure can be found in our Subnational estimates of households by tenure, England dataset.

Owner-occupied dwellings were the most common dwellings nationally in 2023, but there was variation between local authorities (LAs) in how tenure was split.

Figure 1 shows the split of tenures within LAs. It compares the highest figures for each tenure type and estimated averages for England.

Owner-occupied dwellings

Owner-occupied dwellings were the highest proportion of dwelling stock in 286 out of 295 LAs in England in 2023.

Castle Point and Rochford, both in Essex, were the LAs with the highest proportion of owner-occupied dwellings overall. We estimate that in these places 80.6% of dwellings were owner-occupied. The lowest proportion was Tower Hamlets, where an estimated 27.5% of dwellings were owner-occupied. The proportion of owner-occupied dwellings was 62.4% of total dwelling stock in England. When ranked, the middle 148 local authorities had between 60.3% and 71.7% of dwellings that were owner-occupied.

We can further divide owner-occupied dwellings into those owned outright and those owned with a mortgage. North Norfolk had the highest proportion of dwellings owned outright (49.8%), while Wokingham had the highest proportion owned with a mortgage or loan (42.3%). About two-thirds of LAs (196 out of 295) had a higher proportion of dwellings owned outright than those owned by a mortgage.

Private rent

We estimate that privately rented dwellings represented just over one-fifth (20.8%) of dwelling stock in England in 2023. The LA with the highest proportion of privately rented dwellings was City of London (51.8%), followed by Westminster, where 47.9% of dwelling stock was private rent. North East Derbyshire had the lowest proportion, at 10.3%. When ranked, the middle 148 local authorities had between 15.3% and 22% privately rented dwellings.

Social rent

Islington had the highest proportion of socially rented dwellings in 2023, at 38.9%. Castle Point, which had the highest proportion of owner-occupied tenures, had the lowest proportion of socially rented dwellings, at 5.3%. The proportion of socially rented dwellings across England was 16.7%. When ranked, the middle 148 local authorities had between 12.0% and 18.7% socially rented dwellings.

Figure 2 shows the variation in tenures across England.

Figure 2: Coastal areas and areas outside of cities had higher proportions of dwellings that were owned outright than areas in cities

There were high levels of owner occupancy in coastal areas, and in the areas surrounding cities, in 2023.

Many local authorities (LAs) with high proportions of owner-occupied dwellings were next to an LA that was largely urban. For example:

• Blaby (78.7% owner-occupied dwellings) neighbours Leicester
• Bromsgrove (78.7%) neighbours Birmingham
• Staffordshire Moorlands (78.7%) neighbours Stoke-on-Trent

99 LAs had more dwellings owned with a mortgage or a loan than those owned outright. These areas were mostly found in London, the South East and the East of England. This pattern can be seen in Figure 2.

Cities in England had the highest proportions of privately rented properties. Our estimates suggest that there were only nine LAs that had a higher proportion of privately rented dwellings than owner-occupied dwellings, in 2023. All nine of these LAs were in Inner London. They were:

• City of London (51.8%)
• Westminster (47.9%)
• Kensington and Chelsea (42.8%)
• Newham (41.1%)
• Tower Hamlets (41.0%)
• Hammersmith and Fulham (38.1%)
• Camden (36.9%)
• Hackney (33.5%)
• Islington (32.2%)

Of these nine areas, three had more than twice the proportion of privately rented dwellings for England (20.8%).

Outside London, the LAs with the highest proportion of privately rented dwellings in 2023 were Brighton and Hove and Manchester, (both at 33.2%).

LAs in Inner London also had the highest proportions of socially rented dwellings in England. Islington, Hackney, and Southwark all had just under 40% of socially rented dwellings in 2023.

Household

A household refers to a person living alone, or a group of people living at the same address, who share cooking facilities and a living room, sitting room, or dining area.

Dwelling

A dwelling refers to the physical unit of accommodation which may have one or more household spaces.

Owner occupied

This tenure category covers units of accommodation in which the occupier either owns the property in full (owned outright) or has taken out a mortgage or loan (owned with mortgage or loan) to help purchase their home, and is still in the process of repaying the debt.

Owned outright

This tenure category covers units of accommodation in which the occupier owns the property in full and has no outstanding mortgage repayments or money owed in connection with the property in any other form.

Owned with mortgage or loan

This tenure category covers units of accommodation in which the occupier has taken out a loan or mortgage to help purchase their home and are still in the process of repaying the debt, including shared ownership.

Private rent

This tenure category includes all units of accommodation that are not occupied by the owner but are occupied by a tenant or group of tenants. Privately rented accommodation is owned by a landlord who can be (but is not limited to):

• an employer
• a private company
• a private individual
• a friend or family member

This tenure category also includes occupiers who are living in properties that they do not own but do not pay rent, and squatting tenants.

Social rent

This tenure category includes all units of accommodation that are owned or maintained by a local council, housing association (private registered provider), charitable trust or local housing company, and are occupied by a tenant or group of tenants.

Generalised Structure Preserving Estimator

The Generalised Structure Preserving Estimator (GSPREE) (PDF, 2.26MB) method uses small area estimation techniques to combine and draw strength from several data sources. For more information on the GSPREE process, see Section 7: Explaining the Generalised Structure Preserving Estimator of our Alternative estimates of subnational dwelling stock by tenure article.

Structure Preserving Estimator

The Structure Preserving Estimator (SPREE) uses small area estimation techniques to combine and draw strength from several data sources using a method known as Iterative Proportional Fitting (IPF).

We apply the IPF method separately for households and dwellings. SPREE assumes that the proxy source (Census 2021 local authority by tenure counts) and the target table (the estimates produced) have the same distribution. It works to preserves the underlying relationships in the proxy source, while still meeting the row and column benchmarks.

A full explanation of our quality and methods information can be found in our Subnational estimates of dwellings and households by tenure quality and methodology information (QMI).

We have updated our method in response to quality issues found in our survey sources. This means that these results are not directly comparable with our previously published estimates, which using the Generalised Structure Preserving Estimator (GSPREE).

Following the release of our Census 2021 tenure estimates, we completed a detailed analysis of results to see how well our model performed. We found there was notable bias in the estimates that it produced. This was caused by bias in the Annual Population Survey (APS) tenure inputs, in part because of the telephone interviewing introduced during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. This change affected who responded to the survey. For example, there was a notable decrease in the proportion of respondents living in privately rented dwellings and an increase in those living in dwellings owned outright. For more information, see our Coronavirus and its impact on the Labour Force Survey article.

Consequently, to produce estimates for 2022 and 2023, we have used the Structure Preserving Estimator (SPREE) method, which uses Iterative Proportional Fitting (IPF). Unlike the GSPREE approach used to produce our previous subnational household and dwelling estimates, the SPREE approach does not use unweighted APS local authority (LA) tenure distributions (which were affected by the move to telephone interviewing during the pandemic). Instead, we use:

• households by tenure at LA level from Census 2021
• weighted estimates of the number of households from the Labour Force Survey (LFS)
• administrative data for the number of private sector and socially rented dwellings

We calculate a vacancy rate by dividing the number of households from Census 2021, by the number of dwellings taken from the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) Live tables on dwelling stock dataset (Live table100), and calculate this as a percentage of the number of dwellings.

We only model the private sector because estimates for social rent are already available for dwellings estimates, from the MHCLG. We can calculate household estimates for social rent by applying an occupancy rate adjustment to the dwellings estimates.

Estimates are constrained to row and column totals to ensure that they are correctly scaled to represent the population.

To produce dwelling estimates (for the private sector), we use:

• a proxy source – Census 2021 LA by tenure counts, adjusted using an occupancy rate to convert to dwellings
• a column benchmark – Census 2021 national tenure distribution for the private sector, rolled forward to the year of interest, accounting for the MHCLG estimate of the number of private sector dwellings
• a row benchmark – the total number of private sector dwellings in each local LA (Live Table 100, MHCLG).

To produce household estimates (for the private sector), we use:

• a proxy source – Census 2021 LA by tenure counts
• a column benchmark – Census 2021 national tenure distribution for the private sector, rolled forward to the year of interest, accounting for the official estimate of the number of households in England from the LFS
• a row benchmark – MHCLG LA dwellings estimates (excluding socially rented) with vacancy rate adjustment

Our method for producing subnational household and dwelling estimates by tenure is subject to change, as quality concerns in the survey sources are addressed.

Uses

We produce datasets that provide estimates of subnational tenure breakdown for both dwellings and households. Households is the most useful measure for tenure estimates based on the groups of people who live in properties. Dwellings are most useful for users interested in the number of physical units of accommodation (including those that are vacant) available to be taken up by each of the tenure types (total dwelling stock).

For more information on the differences between households and dwellings, please see our Subnational estimates of dwellings and households by tenure QMI report. For definitions of households and dwellings, see Section 6: Glossary.

Comparability

This dataset is primarily a source of LA-level data. Therefore, it is not directly comparable with MHCLG country- and regional-level tables of tenure by dwellings (Tables 100 and 104).

Because of our change in method, estimates for 2022 and 2023 are not directly comparable with our previously published estimates (data up to 2021) because these estimates used the GSPREE methods.