United Kingdom - Housing Starts





United Kingdom: Housing Starts

Mnemonic HST.IGBR
Unit #, NSA
Adjustments Not Seasonally Adjusted
Quarterly 1.07 %
Data 2019 Q2 49,210
2019 Q1 48,690

United Kingdom: Real Estate

Reference Last Previous Units Frequency
House Price Index Dec 2023 147.7 147.2 Index Jan2015=100, SA Monthly
House Price Index for Existing Homes 2023 Q4 520.37 522.29 Index 1993Q1=100, NSA Quarterly
House Price Index for New Homes 2023 Q4 554.5 557.64 Index 1993Q1=100, NSA Quarterly
House Price Value Dec 2023 281,679 280,732 GBP, SA Monthly
House Price Value for Existing Homes 2023 Q4 303,737 304,859 GBP, NSA Quarterly
House Price Value for New Homes 2023 Q4 218,520 219,757 GBP, NSA Quarterly
Vacancy 2021 23,740 23,534 Thousands Annual
Building Completions 2019 Q2 55,590 48,940 #, NSA Quarterly
Housing Starts 2019 Q2 49,210 48,690 #, NSA Quarterly
Residential Building Completions 2019 Q2 55,590 48,940 #, NSA Quarterly
Dwelling Stocks 31 Mar 2014 28,073 27,914 Ths. # 365 days

Release Information

For the U.K., the provisional number of dwelling starts and completions (i.e., residential stage of construction), in the country and its regions and districts, quarterly and annual.

The geo corpus is subject to change.

  • Typologies:
    • Owner: Private enterprise, registered social landlord, local authority
  • Measurement: Unitary count (#)
  • Adjustments:
    • Seasonally adjusted (SA)
    • Not seasonally adjusted (NSA)
  • Native frequencies:
    • Quarterly
    • Annual
  • Start dates:
    • As early as 1978Q1
    • As early as 1981
  • Geo coverage:
    • Eurostat-type areas:
      • NUTS 1 areas (9x IGBR_aaaa)
      • LAU (2013) level 1 areas (IGBR_E0n000nnn)
    • ONS-type areas:
      • Country (4x IGBR_aaaa)
      • Country-level aggregate (IGBR_X and IGBR_ENGW)
      • Region (9x, IGBR_aaaa)
      • County (27x, IGBR_E100000nn)
      • Local authority district (LAD) (over 300, IGBR_Enn000nnn)

Construction started

A house or flat is counted as started on the date work begins on the laying of the foundation, including ‘slabbing’ for houses that require it, but not including site preparation. Thus when foundation work commences on a pair of semi-detached houses 2 houses are counted as started, and when work begins on a block of flats all the dwellings in that block are counted as started. The starts of houses in building schemes are usually phased over a period of weeks or even, in very large schemes, months.

The figures shown for starts are derived from records kept for building control purposes. It is sometimes difficult for data providers to identify whether a dwelling is being built for a Registered Social Landlord or for a private developer. This is because sometimes the builders themselves are not sure of the precise ownership or the ownership may keep evolving and it is not final until it was sold. This may lead to an understatement of Registered Social Landlord starts and completions recorded in these tables, and a corresponding overstatement of private enterprise figures. The problem is more likely to occur with starts than completions.

Constructions completed

In principle, a dwelling is regarded as completed when it becomes ready for occupation or when a completion certificate is issued whether it is in fact occupied or not. In practice, there are instances where the timing could be delayed and some completions are missed for example as no completion certificate was requested by the owner.

Corpus changes

National and regional totals are reported only in annual frequency and were terminated in 2012.

A change to administrative geographies was implemented between 2019Q1 and Q2.

Moody's Analytics data translation

The source shows "-" wherever the value is less than 5. We translate this to "ND".

  • Sep 2005 - Initial version.
  • Mar 2015 - Change in scale.
  • May 2015 - Addendum of all reported NUTS-type subnational areas.
  • Jun 2018 - Overhaul.
  • Mar 2020 - Advance to next geo vintage.
  • 16 Nov 2023, Phillip Thorne - Advance to next geo vintage.