United Kingdom - Dwelling Stocks

For the U.K., there are up to four tenure categories for dwelling stock, house building and household figures. These are:

1. Owner-occupied (or private enterprise in the case of house building statistics i.e. dwellings financed and built by private developers for owner occupiers or private landlords, whether persons or companies). This includes accommodation that is owned outright or is being bought with a mortgage
2. Rented privately, defined as all non-owner-occupied property other than that rented from local authorities and RSLs plus that rented from private or public bodies by virtue of employment. This includes property occupied rent-free by someone other than the owner. New built privately rented dwellings will be included in the house building private enterprise figures)
3. Rented from Registered Social Landlords (RSLs defined below, but for stock figures non-registered Housing Associations are excluded and subsumed within owner-occupied as are RSL shared ownership and shared equity dwellings; for house building figures the RSL tenure includes social rent, intermediate rent and low-cost home ownership RSL new built dwellings); and
4. Rented from Local Authorities (see definition below). In Scotland dwellings rented from local authorities include those rented from Scottish Homes, formerly the Scottish Special Housing Association.

Estimates of the total dwelling stock, stock changes and the tenure distribution for each country are made by Communities and Local Government, the Scottish Executive and the National Assembly for Wales. These are primarily based on census output data for the number of dwellings (or households converted to dwellings) from the Censuses of Population for Great Britain.

The dwelling stock statistical release details the key changes since the previous release, a year before. The new data published in the release are also incorporated into detailed data tables (known as ‘live tables’) which provide further breakdowns, including dwelling stock statistics for local authority districts. 

Please, note that the dataset frequency has been altered over the time. Before 1981 the frequency was very variable. Since 1981 to 1990 the frequency was set to Annual (December). Starting 1991 onwards the frequency is Annual (March).

The live tables also incorporate revisions if improved information is provided at a later date and will always contain the latest data, whereas previous statistical releases are not revised in the light of new data, but left as they were at publication.

Table 101: Dwelling stock: by tenure, United Kingdom

1. For detailed definitions of all tenures, see Definitions of housing terms in Housing Statistics home page. 'Other public sector dwellings' figures are currently only available for England.
2. April data for census years are based on census output, except 1981 (an estimate) as a dwelling count was not collected in the Northern Ireland census.
3. Data for years 1969 to 1990 sourced from Department of Environment publications:  Housing and Construction Statistics, 1967-1979, 1977-1987,1980-1990 and 1990-1997.  Great Britain totals from 2002 are derived by summing country totals at 31st March.  For 1991 to 2001 Scotland stock levels from the year before is added into the UK total.
4. Series from 1992 to 2011 for England has been adjusted so that the 2001 and 2011 total dwelling estimate matches the 2001 and 2011 Census. Estimates from 2002 are based on local authority and housing association dwelling counts, the Labour Force Survey and, from 2003, the English Housing Survey. Estimates may not be strictly comparable between periods.
5. From 2003 the figures for owner-occupied and the private rental sector for England have been produced using a new improved methodology as detailed in the dwelling stock release. Previous to this vacancy was not accounted for.

Table 106 Dwelling stock: by tenure, Wales

1. For detailed definitions of all tenures, see Definitions of housing terms in Housing Statistics home page.
2. Owner-occupied tenure includes owner-occupied, intermediate and other.
3. April data for census years are based on census output.
4. Data for years 1969 to 1990 sourced from Department of Environment publications: Housing and Construction Statistics, 1967-1979, 1977-1987,1980-1990 and 1990-1997.
5. The tenure split between owner-occupied and privately rented dwellings has been calculated from 1997 onwards using information from the Labour Force Survey. These figures were revised in January 2011 following a re-weighting of the Labour Force Survey data.

For more information, please visit: 

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/live-tables-on-dwelling-stock-including-vacants