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 Statistics), 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 second publication of findings from the 2023-24 survey and focuses on housing quality and energy efficiency. The first report was published in November 2024 and focused on household demographics, dwelling characteristics, and financial resilience.

The 2023-24 physical survey data published in this report is the first since 2019 that was not impacted by the data collection and methodological changes undertaken during the COVID-19 pandemic. That is, full dwelling surveys were undertaken for both years of data used for analysis of dwellings and housing quality variables are based on observed rather than modelled data. This means that, for the first time since 2019, we have access to the full set of detailed housing quality and energy efficiency variables. In consultation with users, we have updated the content of this report to reflect the availability of this data as well as user interest in more data on housing quality and energy efficiency.

While compiled on a comparable basis to 2019, the changes in methodology necessitated by the Covid pandemic mean that comparisons across intervening years within this report should be made with caution. In the main, we compare analysis that uses the physical survey to pre-pandemic data to ensure it is comparable. For analysis using the interview survey, we may compare to more recent data, depending on the changes we observe.

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.

The headline findings will be followed up with a series of more detailed topic reports in the spring and summer of 2025.

This report

This report contains headline findings on housing quality and energy efficiency. It is split into two chapters.

The first chapter focuses on housing quality and condition, including decency, safety and damp. Rates of overcrowding and under-occupation by tenure are also examined.

The second chapter covers energy efficiency, heating and insulation. It also looks at smart meters, electricity payment methods, subjective overheating and the cost to improve to an energy efficiency rating of band C.

The overarching findings show general improvements to both housing quality and energy efficiency in the long term. Compared to a decade ago, we see fewer non-decent and unsafe homes, and more homes in the highest energy efficiency bands. Nonetheless, we still observe a persistent level of homes that fail the Decent Homes Standard, or have poor energy efficiency ratings. More particularly, we have seen increases in levels of damp and mould and have also observed changes to the space available in homes and the size of households that could have knock-on effects for housing quality.

In 2023, we observed a notable increase in levels of dangerous damp and mould in all tenures when compared to the pre-pandemic levels (2019). This is in contrast to improvements in the Decent Homes Standard, the reduction of Category 1 hazards, and improvements to energy efficiency. While there is a correlation between these measures and dangerous damp and mould, the other standards only capture damp and mould to a limited degree. This increase in dangerous damp and mould is particularly important given recent policy developments and health concerns.

We also observed a reduction in the number of bedrooms available in the rented sectors, which is partly responsible for the decrease in under occupation levels seen in the rented sectors. It could also be related to the slight increases we have seen in average overcrowding levels. Overcrowding can be related to affordability issues, as well as correlated to housing quality issues such as a higher incidence of damp and mould and, as such, this is something we will continue to monitor in further surveys.

Additional annex tables provide further detail to that covered in the main body of the report.

Key findings

The overall rate of overcrowding in England in 2023-24 was 3%, similar to previous years. There was a decrease in the proportion of underoccupied dwellings in the private rented sector from 16% in 2022-23 to 13% in 2023-24.

There was a decrease in the overall prevalence of non-decent homes compared to pre-pandemic estimates: from 17% in 2019 to 15% in 2023. Across tenure, there were decreases in the owner occupied sector (from 16% to 14%) and the social rented sector (from 12% to 10%) over that time, but no statistically significant decrease in the private rented sector.

In 2023, Category 1 hazards remained more prevalent in the private rented sector (10%) than the owner occupied sector (8%) and the social rented sector (4%). However, since 2021, there was a decrease in the prevalence of Category 1 hazards in the private rented sector from 14%, and the owner occupied sector from 10%. From 2019 to 2021, the prevalence of Category 1 hazards remained unchanged across all tenures, and this statistically significant drop has only taken place in the last 2 years.

In 2023, 5% of dwellings in England had a problem with damp, higher than in any of the last 5 years (3-4%). Damp increased across all tenures since 2019, and was more prevalent in the private rented sector (9%), compared to the social rented sector (7%) and owner occupied sector (4%).

In 2023, serious condensation was more prevalent in homes (3%) than rising damp (2%) and penetrating damp (2%). Within the social rented sector, local authority dwellings were more likely to have serious condensation (7%) than housing association dwellings (4%).

Over the last 10 years, the proportion of homes in the highest energy efficiency bands A to C increased from 23% to 52%, while the proportion within the lowest bands of E to G decreased (26% to 9%).

The estimated average cost to improve dwellings to at least an energy efficiency band C was £7,320 across all tenures, with owner occupied dwellings costing the most and social rented homes costing the least.

Owner occupied and local authority homes had the highest proportion of central heating (both 95%), followed by housing association homes (91%). Private rented homes had the lowest proportion of central heating (86%). 

Loft and wall insulation increased over the last 10 years. Around 40% of dwellings had loft insultation (over 200mm thickness), an increase from 37% in 2013. Just over half (53%) of dwellings had cavity or solid wall insulation (up from 46% in 2013) and 89% of homes had full double glazing, up from 80% of homes in 2013.

In 2023-24, owner occupiers (59%) and social renters (53%) were more likely to report having an electricity smart meter, compared to private renters (47%).

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.