English Housing Survey 2024 to 2025: headline findings on demographics and household resilience
Initial findings from the English Housing Survey 2024 to 2025 on the profile of household and dwellings, household demographics, housing costs and affordability, household moves, and wellbeing.
The latest findings from the English Housing Survey on demographics and resilience of households in England.
This is the first release of data from the 2024-25 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 2026.
Key findings:
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Owner occupation remained the largest tenure group in England (65% of households), followed by the private rented sector (19%), with the social rented sector being the smallest (16%). While the overall proportion of owner occupiers remains similar to a decade ago, the proportion of outright owners is significantly higher now – today the proportion of outright owners is 36% of households. Ten years ago in 2014-15, this proportion was 33%.
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In 2024, there were 1.2 million vacant dwellings, making up 5% of the dwellings in England (11% of private rented dwellings, 4% of social rented dwellings and 3% of owner occupied dwellings were vacant at the time of survey). In the private rented and social rented sectors, the most common reason for vacancy was vacant awaiting another tenant or owner (8% and 3% of all dwellings respectively) compared with 1% in owner occupied vacant dwellings.
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The private and social rented sectors were more nationally diverse tenures. Most owner occupied households (95%) had HRPs from the UK or Republic of Ireland (ROI), compared with 88% of social renters and 68% of private renters.
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Across all tenures, households reported higher mortgage and rent costs compared to five years ago. Mean weekly mortgage payments in 2024-25 were higher in London (£375) than in the rest of England (£220). Mean mortgage for both areas has increased compared to five years ago (2019-20), from £263 and £170 respectively. Over the same period, the average (mean) weekly rental costs for private and social renters also increased, to £393 in London and £207 in the rest of England for private renters; and £171 in London and £119 in the rest of England for social renters.
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Satisfaction has fallen across all tenures since 2019-20. In 2024-25, owner occupiers were more likely to report being satisfied with their accommodation (94%) than private renters (81%). The lowest levels of satisfaction were in social rented households (75%).