English Housing Survey: datasets
Information on how to access datasets.
Applies to England
The English Housing Survey (EHS) is a continuous national survey commissioned by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. It collects information about people’s housing circumstances and the housing stock in England.
Data deposited at the UK Data Archive
English Housing Survey datasets deposited at the UK Data Archive are made available via the UK Data Service for users who want to undertake secondary analysis.
The UK Data Service provide help and support to users wishing to undertake analysis on the survey. This takes the form of a helpdesk, newsletters, on-line help and documentation on the dataset. Some types of users are charged for some of the service.
End User Licence and Special Licence datasets
Each year’s dataset is released once the main annual reports have been published. They are anonymised SPSS datasets with full user technical documentation. The datasets are also available in STATA and Excel format.
All datasets will include grossing weights that users must apply to the data to generate nationally representative results. Any potentially disclosive information is removed and only regional level geographic identifiers included. Checks are undertaken prior to release to avoid the release of disclosive information via for example string variables.
The full household sample dataset (ie all cases where an interview was completed) is released on a single-financial-year basis. The dwelling sub-sample data (ie where both an interview and physical survey were carried out or where a physical survey was conducted at a vacant property) will continue to be released as a 2-year rolling sample.
Beginning with 2014 to 2015 data, simplified versions of the derived datasets will be made available as End User Licence datasets, while the more detailed data will be available as Special Licence datasets. The Special Licence datasets will include the detailed interview and physical survey files and fuller versions of the derived datasets.
Variable naming has been retained from former English house condition survey/survey of English housing variables where there has been no significant change to the data collected.
Secure Access datasets
We are also depositing the English Housing Survey datasets complete with detailed geographic identifiers via the UK Data Service Secure Data Service which give researchers access to sensitive information in a secure environment so that confidentiality requirements are met.
The disclosive dataset would only be available to approved researchers who have agreed to abide by strict disclosure control principles.
Guidance on accessing the datasets
You need to first register with the UK Data Service. Please see the registration and login page which has information depending on the type of organisation you are based on (e.g. ‘other UK user’ if you are from a charity or ‘commercial user’ if you work at a company).
To access the special licence datasets you need to fill in the special licence application form. To access this, together with instructions for where to send it, please click the Download/Order button on the Catalogue entry for the datasets you want to access, e.g. 2014 Housing Stock (special licence access) and 2014-15 Household Data (special licence access). Please note that it is not necessary to be an ONS accredited researcher to apply for the EHS special licence datasets.
The fuel poverty datasets published by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy are closely linked to the EHS. For those of you using both the EHS and the fuel poverty datasets please note that they form 2 different datasets on the UK Data Service website, which need to be ‘linked’ at the record level using the aacode variable. On the special licence application form apply for both sets of data, and in section 8 state that you will link the EHS and fuel poverty datasets using the aacode variable, explaining briefly why the EUL versions do not meet your requirements and why you need to link the datasets.
Further information
If you would like further information about the English Housing Survey or would like to be added to our newsletter mailing list please contact:
email: ehs@levellingup.gov.uk
Tel: 0303 444 0000
English Housing Survey project management
Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities
4th floor SW, Fry Building
2 Marsham Street
London
SW1P 4DF
Updates to this page
Last updated 6 December 2016 + show all updates
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Added guidance on accessing the datasets.
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First published.