Admin-based household estimates for local authorities in England and Wales: 2021 to 2023

• We are in the process of developing estimates of the number of households in England and Wales from 2021 to 2023 using admin-based data sources to understand how they compare with official household estimates; this new bulletin is an update to our previous article.

• The methodology has been updated to remove implausibly large households (containing 31 or more people) from the estimates to align with Census 2021 methodology; this change has resulted in minor revisions to the 2021 estimates.

• There were an estimated 25.25 million households in England and Wales in 2023, based on administrative data sources, which is an increase of 2.2% or 530,000 households from 2021; this is higher than the 1.0% growth in households based on survey data sources for the same period.

• The admin-based estimates of the number of households increased in Wales and every region of England, ranging from 1.8% in London to 2.9% in the North East between 2021 and 2023; the survey-based estimates ranged from a decrease of 1.7% in the East Midlands to an increase of 4.0% in the North East over the same period.

• Admin-based household estimates do not include measures of uncertainty so we cannot determine whether year-on-year changes are statistically significant; changes over a longer period are more likely to provide a reliable indication of broader trends.

Data sources

This section lists the data sources used to produce our admin-based household estimates (ABHE).

Admin-based living arrangements dataset

The admin-based living arrangement dataset (ABLAD) is a record-level dataset that aims to assign people in the Statistical Population Dataset (SPD) to addresses using a Unique Property Reference Number (UPRN).

Admin-based occupied address dataset

The admin-based occupied address dataset (ABOAD) is a subset of ABLAD which contains record-level data of people linked to private residential addresses (known as occupied addresses) using administrative data.

Admin-based communal establishment dataset

The admin-based communal establishment dataset (ABCED) is a subset of ABLAD which contains record-level data of people linked to communal establishments (for example, care homes, student halls of residences, and prisons) using administrative data.

Annual Population Survey (APS)

The Annual Population Survey (APS) is a UK household survey that combines Waves 1 and 5 from the Labour Force Survey (LFS) with a local sample boost.

Lower achieved sample sizes in recent years have increased uncertainty in APS estimates, particularly at the local authority level. However, achieved sample sizes began to improve following the implementation of our surveys and economic statistics improvement plan. All APS derived outputs are now labelled as official statistics.

The APS local sample boost has been reduced from 2026 onwards.

APS household data for 2011 to 2026 will be re-weighted following Census 2021.

Admin-based population estimates

Admin-based population estimates (ABPEs) are estimates of the total population of England and Wales disaggregated by local authority, sex, and birth cohort based on administrative data and statistical modelling (Dynamic Population Model).

ABPEs will not be adopted as official population estimates, as explained in our Assessment of criteria for moving to admin-based population estimates as official estimates of population, England and Wales article, published in March 2026. We will continue to improve the population estimates using administrative data and we will aim to use the official population estimates in future ABHE releases.

Statistical Population Dataset

The Statistical Population Dataset (SPD) is a single, coherent dataset that forms the basis for estimating the size of the resident population. It is produced by linking records across multiple administrative data sources and applying a set of inclusion and distribution rules. For more information on Version 4.0 of the SPD, see our Developing SPDs, England and Wales: 2021 article. Version 5.1 of the SPD is used for the estimates produced in this release.

Household and occupied address definition

The harmonised definition of a household is:

One person living alone or a group of people (not necessarily related) living at the same address who share cooking facilities and share a living room or sitting room or dining area.

An occupied address is an address with at least one usual resident.

Multiple households can be present within a single occupied address.

In administrative data, occupied addresses are often used as a proxy for households because administrative data cannot identify whether residents share facilities. In this publication we use a method which aims to align the admin-based household estimates with the harmonised definition of a household.

Quality

Our methods have been reviewed by the independent Methodological Assurance Review Panel (MARP). The reviewed papers are available on the UK Statistics Authority's MARP Papers page. The latest update on the ABHE methods is our Research on producing admin-based estimates of the number and size of households for local authorities in England and Wales (PDF, 268KB).

The methodology used in this bulletin is detailed in Section 3 of our Admin-based household estimates for local authorities in England and Wales: 2021 article. However, we have updated the methodology to remove implausibly large households (containing 31 or more people) from the estimates, to align with Census 2021 methodology. This change has resulted in minor revisions to the 2021 estimates when compared with our previous publication.

Official statistics in development

ABHE statistics are labelled as "official statistics in development". They are based on information from administrative data sources. They are published to support comparison with existing methods and should not be used for decision-making.

We are developing how we collect the data and produce the statistics to improve their quality. Once we have completed the developments, we will review the statistics with the Statistics Head of Profession. 

If the statistics meet trustworthiness, quality and value standards based on user feedback, we will remove the "official statistics in development" label to publish under the "official statistics" label.

If they do not meet trustworthiness, quality and value standards, we will further develop them and might stop producing them.

We will inform users of the outcome of our, and any Office for Statistics Regulation, review and any changes.

More quality and methodology information

Information on the official household estimates for England and Wales is provided in our Household estimates and projections across the UK: user guide.

Comparisons made to the survey-based estimates in Section 1: Main points have been derived from the 2025 edition of our Households by household size, regions of England and Great Britain constituent countries dataset, which was published alongside our Families and households in the UK: 2025 bulletin.

Future developments

We plan to publish outputs from our work to develop ABHE by household-size in late 2026.

To help shape this work, we would like to hear from users. Please let us know how we can improve the admin-based household estimates and tell us about their potential uses. Email your feedback to pop.info@ons.gov.uk.