Accredited official statistics

Introduction and key findings

Published 28 November 2024

Applies to England

Introduction

The English Housing Survey (EHS) is a national survey of people’s housing circumstances and the condition and energy efficiency of housing in England. It is a repeated cross-sectional survey that pairs a household interview with a physical inspection of the home. It is an Accredited Official statistic (previously known as National statistic), and is one of the longest standing government surveys, first run in 1967.  

To support timely and relevant reporting, the usual EHS Headline report has been split into two releases. This report is the first publication of findings from the 2023-24 survey, and details findings on housing demographics and resilience. Additional findings on housing quality and energy efficiency will be published in January 2025. The 2023-24 data published in this report is the first since 2019-20 that was not impacted by the methodological changes undertaken during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Background to the English Housing Survey 2023-24 data

Over the past three years the survey’s data collection was impacted by the circumstances surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic. As previously noted, the 2023-24 data collection year is the first year of fieldwork since 2019-20 free of such impacts. The interview survey was held predominantly face-to-face (telephone interviews were offered for those who preferred). Physical inspections of dwellings had already returned to the traditional in-person mode in 2022-23; however, since two years of the physical survey are combined for analysis, last year’s 2022-23 findings still relied in part on data collected through the ‘external plus’ survey method used in 2021-22. This is not the case for the 2023-24 data published here, which uses data only from full surveys. More information on the impact of COVID-19 on the English Housing Survey and the modelling methodology can be found in Annex 5.5 of the Technical Report.

A consequence of having to vary the EHS methodology during the covid-impacted years was that it was difficult to be certain if changes over time were ‘real’ changes or the result of changes to survey mode. This was particularly the case for  differences observed in household type and composition where we were unsure whether an apparent increase in one person households might be the result of response bias – with fewer families likely to respond to our survey over the pandemic period. This year we see similar levels and so can be more confident it is a genuine finding: the comparison is based on the same mode of data collection and we have increased our sample size.  While we cannot discern the reason for this likely change, it is notable as the housing and financial experiences of single households tend to be different e.g. one person households tend to have lower financial resilience and are more likely to struggle with unexpected costs or drops in income.

The interview fieldwork for the 2023-24 data was carried out from April 2023 to March 2024, prior to the most recent General Election (in July 2024). During this time, the country saw increases in inflation alongside rising interest rates and cost of living, resulting in increases in rent, mortgage, energy costs and other household expenses, such as childcare and groceries. EHS findings confirm this – showing substantial rises in rent and mortgage payments, and a higher proportion of mortgagors and private renters saying they struggle to pay for housing. We also see fewer private renters expecting to buy a home compared to ten years ago. At the same time, the proportion of households with savings is still higher than it was before the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly for outright owners, who will not be affected by higher interest rates in the same way as mortgagors.

Taken together, these findings suggest a growing disparity across households in England, with a smaller but substantial proportion of households struggling with finances and increasingly exposed to risk, and others who are more comfortable in their living situations, with savings or equity in housing. This first release of the EHS 2023-24 data will describe this further, giving a more detailed account of the demographic characteristics, financial resilience and wellbeing of households in England.

This report

This report contains headline findings on household demographics and resilience. It is split into four chapters.  

The first chapter provides a profile of households and dwellings in England, covering tenure (owner occupation and renting in either the social or private sectors) and the demographic and economic characteristics of the people who live in those tenures.

The second chapter explores housing costs and affordability and how this varies between tenures and over time, including average mortgage and rental costs, the extent to which private and social renters claim housing support to help meet the cost of their rent, and savings.

The third chapter discusses first time buyers, future buying expectations among renters, length of time in current accommodation and tenure, and household moves.

The fourth chapter presents well-being rates using four measures of personal well-being and also discusses loneliness.

This is the first release of data from the 2023-24 survey. The report will be followed by two more chapters on housing quality and energy efficiency in January and then a series of more detailed topic reports in the spring and summer of 2025.

Key findings

Owner occupation remained the largest tenure in England (65%), while the social sector was the smallest (16%). The private rented sector has remained at a similar proportion over the past decade (19%).

While the proportion of owner occupiers has not changed over the last ten years, the proportion of outright owners has increased to 35% in 2023-24, and mortgagors to 30%. Since 2013-14, there have been more outright owners than mortgagors.

In 2023, there were 1.2 million vacant dwellings, making up 5% of dwellings in England. Vacancy rates were highest in the private rented sector (10%, 509,000 vacant dwellings ), followed by the social rented sector (4%,164,000 dwellings) and the owner occupied sector (3%, 479,000 dwellings).

Across all tenures, the proportion of households with savings remained higher than before the COVID-19 pandemic. Outright owners were most likely to have savings (85%, up from 75% in 2019-20), followed by those buying with a mortgage (71%, up from 60%), private renters (52%, up from 40%) and social renters (28%, up from 20%).

In 2023-24, households reported higher mortgage and rental costs in nominal terms. Compared to five years ago (2018-19), the average (mean) weekly mortgage payments across England increased significantly (by £71 for London and £47 for the rest of England). Similarly, over the same time period, the average (mean) weekly private and social rents across England also increased (by £36 for private renters and £16 for social renters).

Private renters and mortgagors saw the biggest increase in those reporting difficulty affording their housing costs, with private renters the most likely across all tenures to be struggling (32% up from 29% in 2022-23) and mortgagors the least (14% up from 11% in 2022-23). There was no significant change in the proportion of social renters having difficulty affording their rent (27% in 2023-24 and 28% in 2022-23). This corresponds with increases in mortgage interest rates and substantial increases in private rent around this time.

In 2023-24 a higher proportion of households contained someone with a long-term illness or disability – more than a third of households (37%) up from 34% in the pre-pandemic period (2019-20). The largest increases were for social renters (up to 59% from 54% in 2019-20) and private renters (30% up from 25%). Levels of disability were lowest among those buying with a mortgage (26%), although this was still an increase on the levels seen in 2019-20 (21%).

Owner occupiers had the highest scores for life satisfaction (based on thinking life is worthwhile, happiness and anxiety indicators) compared to other tenures. Those in the social rented sector had the lowest scores (and highest for anxiety).

Owner occupiers were also less likely to often or always feel lonely (4%), compared to HRPs in the private rented sector (7%), and the social rented sector (14%).

Acknowledgements and further queries

Each year the English Housing Survey relies on the contributions of a large number of people and organisations. The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) would particularly like to thank the following people and organisations without whom the 2023-24 survey and this report would not have been possible: all the households who gave up their time to take part in the survey, NatCen Social Research, the Building Research Establishment (BRE) and CADS Housing Surveys.

This report was produced by the Housing Evidence Research and Surveys Team at MHCLG. If you have any queries about it, would like any further information or have suggestions for analyses you would like to see included in future EHS reports, please contact ehs@communities.gov.uk.

The responsible analyst for this report is: Chauncey Glass, Housing and Planning Analysis Division, MHCLG. Contact via ehs@communities.gov.uk.