Accredited official statistics

Affordable housing supply in England: 2023 to 2024

Published 21 November 2024

Applies to England

1. Key statistics

62,289 affordable homes delivered (completions) in England in 2023-24, a decrease of 2% compared to the previous year but the second highest delivery since 2014-15

65% of new affordable housing completions were for rent (including social, affordable and intermediate rent), similar to the previous 5 years

9,866 of new affordable housing completions were for social rent the highest value since 2013-14

44% of all affordable homes delivered in 2023-24 were funded through section 106 (nil grant) agreements, compared to 47% in the previous year and similar to 2021-22

93% of affordable homes delivered in England were new build (excluding unknowns), similar to the previous two years  

43,439 starts on site in England in 2023-24, a decrease of 39% compared to the previous year and the lowest value on record for comparable years from 2016-17 onwards

3,156 starts on site in London in 2023-24, a decrease of 88% compared to the previous year when there were 26,386 starts on site in the region

Release date: 21 November 2024

Lead Statistician: Miguel Marques dos Santos

Statistical queries: housing.statistics@communities.gov.uk

Media enquiries: 0303 444 1209 or NewsDesk@communities.gov.uk

2. Introduction

This release presents statistics on additional affordable housing supply in England. The estimates include new build and affordable housing providers’ acquisitions of private housing. Losses through demolitions, sales to tenants and other sales are not included so the statistics here show only new additions (or gross additions) to the affordable housing stock.

Additional affordable homes are defined as housing units (or bed spaces) provided to specified eligible households whose needs are not met by the market in addition to existing stock of affordable housing. Further details on the coverage of this release are given in the technical notes published alongside this release.

Homes England (previously the Homes and Communities Agency) is responsible for delivery of affordable housing in England, except London. They are responsible for increasing the number of new homes that are built in England, including affordable homes. The responsibility for affordable housing in London transferred to the Mayor of London from April 2012. This means that Homes England no longer administer or report on most affordable housing delivery in London, which is now the responsibility of the Greater London Authority.

Figures are presented for financial years ending 31 March and are presented unrounded, unless otherwise noted. They represent our best estimate at the time of publication and may be subject to revisions.

2.1 Affordable housing and social housing

Data on new supply is collected on the basis of new Affordable Housing. The definitions of Affordable and Social Housing overlap for the vast majority of properties, although there are a few differences. First Homes, an Affordable Housing tenure, does not count as Social Housing (where tenure is the type of housing, such as social rent, affordable rent or shared ownership). There are also some other instances where Social Housing and Affordable Housing differ, particularly in intermediate rent and affordable home ownership tenures, but is not possible to identify these instances in the underlying data.

Additionally, Affordable Housing owned by non-registered providers is not counted as Social Housing in the department’s statistical releases. The vast majority of social housing providers will be registered with the Regulator of Social Housing and only these providers can apply for grant funding to provide low cost rental accommodation, such as social rent and affordable rent.

Because the data on new supply is collected for Affordable Housing only, for statistical purposes, an estimate of new Social Housing can be considered a subset of new Affordable Housing provided by local authorities, private registered providers and where there is no provider information (provider unknown) for all tenures excluding First Homes, but including units where the tenure is unknown.

Sections I and J of the Local Authority Housing Statistics (LAHS) are released along with this publication.

Section I covers data on new supply of affordable housing, including delivery not reported by Homes England or the Greater London Authority, delivery in populations of less than 3,000 and financial information regarding section 106 contributions.

Section J covers starts-on-site not reported by Homes England or the Greater London Authority.

3. National trends in affordable housing supply

There were 62,289 affordable homes delivered in England in 2023-24, a decrease of 2% compared with the previous year. However, this is the second highest number of completions since 2014-15, which was the end of the 2011-15 Affordable Homes Programme. This increase in completions follows the large number of starts at the end of the 2016-23 Affordable Homes Programme. These programmes provide government grant funding to housing providers in England to support the costs of delivering affordable homes. They are the government’s main programme of investment in affordable housing and they are delivered by Homes England and the Greater London Authority.

Chart 1: Affordable housing completions, England, 1991-92 to 2023-24

The data for this chart are available in Live Table 1000.

The number of affordable homes delivered can vary considerably from year to year. The supply of affordable housing is partly dependent on funding programmes, and as part of a house building cycle, delivery is normally lower in the first years of any new programme and increases to a peak around the end of a programme. The peak in 2014-15 is explained by the end of the 2011-15 Affordable Homes Programme and the increase in the number of completions since 2015-16 reflects the transition to the 2016-23 Affordable Homes Programme. The relative high level of completions in 2022-23 and 2023-24 is likely due to the end of the latter programme.

Unlike during the 2011-15 programme, every year between 2015-16 and 2019-20 saw an increase in the delivery of affordable homes.  The decrease in 2020-21 may be due, in large part, to the restrictions introduced during spring 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The number of completions in 2021-22 was similar to completions in 2019-20, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.

In 2023-24, there were 40,240 new affordable homes for rent ^{[footnote 1]}, 2% lower than the 41,012 in the previous year. The share of new affordable homes that are for rent was 65%, similar to the previous 5 years but lower than between 2013-14 to 2017-18 when it varied between 74% and 78%.

3.1 Delivery of new affordable housing by tenure

As show in Chart 2 below, there have been changes in the mix of different tenures of affordable housing. Up to 2011-12, social rent was the most common affordable housing tenure for new supply, but affordable rent has become the most common since its introduction in 2011-12. This change was driven in part by the 2011-15 Affordable Homes Programme, as well as subsequent affordable homes programmes, which funded affordable rent as a tenure.

Chart 2: Affordable housing completions by tenure, England, 1991-92 to 2023-24

The data for this chart is available in Live Table 1000.

There has been a small decrease in the number of affordable rent homes completed in 2022-23 and 2023-24 compared to 2021-22, while the number of social rent completions has increased by a similar amount in both years. Decreases of around 2,000 in 2022-23 and 2,300 in 2023-24 in affordable rent completions compared to 2021-22 were almost matched by increases of 1,800 and 2,200 in social rent completions in 2022-23 and 2023-24 compared to 2021-22.

Recent programmes have also funded shared ownership, which contributed to an increase in these properties, from 4,084 in 2015-16 to 20,364 in the latest year. Prior to 2014-15, all shared ownership units are counted as affordable home ownership. Shared ownership figures for 2014-15 and 2015-16 are based on Homes England and the Greater London Authority figures only, and shared ownership units funded by other means are counted as affordable home ownership.

3.2 Delivery of new affordable housing by provider

In 2023-24, 79% of all affordable housing were delivered by private registered providers, with local authorities delivering 14% and non-registered providers 2% ^{[footnote 2]}. There is no provider information on the remaining 5% of all units. These percentages have been broadly stable since 2015-16, accounting for small fluctuations year-on-year. However, the proportion of units with no provider information has increased from 1% to 5% of all affordable housing completions.

Chart 3: Percentage of affordable housing completions by provider, England, 1991-92 to 2023-24

The data for this chart is available in Live Table 1013.

Historically, private registered providers had a higher share of the delivery (nearly all affordable housing delivery throughout the 1990s was through private registered providers). The 8,959 affordable homes delivered by local authorities (representing 14% of the overall affordable housing delivery) are the highest recorded number of local authority completions for the years this data is available (this series began in 1991-92); however, this comparison should be interpreted with care because the number of units with unknown provider was higher prior to 2014-15 than it is currently.

3.3 Funding of new affordable housing completions

Delivery of affordable homes funded through s106 nil grant agreements ^{[footnote 3] [footnote 4]} (completions for which no government grant funding is provided) accounted for 44% of all affordable homes delivered in 2023-24, compared to 47% in the previous year. The first completions of s106 (nil grant) were recorded in 2000-01 and nearly all homes funded through this process are new build properties. Prior to 2014-15, s106 (partial grant) units were not separately identified in the data and are captured within the numbers of grant funded units. Partial grant funding used to be much more prevalent but recently the vast majority of s106 funded units are nil grant.

Chart 4: Affordable housing completions by funding, England, 1991-92 to 2023-24

The data for this chart is available in Live Table 1000C.

The ‘other’ category includes all other sources of funding, including among others, the use of Right to Buy receipts by local authorities and the Affordable Homes Guarantees scheme.

4. Regional delivery of new affordable housing

In 2023-24, London was the region with the highest delivery of new affordable housing, followed by the South East, although both with lower than in 2022-23. These regions and the South West were the only regions to have a decrease in delivery compared to the previous year.

London and the South East have been consistently the main drivers of new affordable housing supply. While London usually has the highest regional delivery, between 2017-18 and 2019-20 delivery was higher in the South East. A full set of regional figures are included in Live Table 1008C.

Chart 5: Affordable housing completions by region, England, 1991-92 to 2023-24

The data for this chart is available in Live Table 1008C.

Trends by tenure present a more complex picture. On social rent, more than half (56%) of new social rent homes in 2022-23 were in just 3 regions - South East, West Midlands and South West. This has held since 2017-18. Between 1992-93 to 2017-18, London was the region with most social rent delivery, but it has since reduced considerably the number of new social rent homes delivered. On affordable rent, both the South East and the East of England have delivered more homes than London since 2016-17 and 2017-18, respectively. In all but three years since 2016-17, there were more affordable rent homes delivered in the North West than in London. These changes coincided with the Greater London Authority’s introduction of London affordable rent as a tenure in 2017-18. In 2023-24, the Greater London Authority delivered 3,916 new homes in this tenure. However, the considerable drop number of starts for this tenure in 2023-24 suggests that completions for this tenure may reduce sharply over the next few years.

Figures for regional and local authority completions of homes by tenure can be found in Live Tables 1006C to 1007dC.

5. Delivery of affordable housing in rural-urban areas

Using DEFRA’s 2011 rural-urban classification for England, it is possible to present sub-national trends in rural and urban areas ^{[footnote 5]}.

In 2023-24, 25,427 units were delivered in local authorities classified as rural ^{[footnote 6]} and 36,812 in those classified as urban ^{[footnote 7]}. This represents a negligible change in rural areas and a 4% decrease in urban areas.

Chart 6: Affordable housing completions by 2011 rural-urban classification, England, 1991-92 to 2023-24

In 2023-24, rural local authorities represented 41% of all completions. The proportion of completions in rural local authorities was historically around 30% of all completions, but it increased steadily from 2011-12 and between 2015-16 and 2023-24 varied between 39% and 45%.

5.1 Affordable housing delivery in populations of less than 3,000

The Local Authority Housing Statistics ^{[footnote 8]} also collects the number of new build and acquisitions in populations of less than 3,000.

In 2023-24, there were 5,248 new affordable homes in these areas, which accounted for 8% of all new affordable housing. This is an increase of 7% compared to the previous year but lower than a peak of 5,702 in 2018-19. As a percentage, delivery in populations of less than 3,000 has been 8% since 2020-21, lower than a peak of 12% in 2015-16.

6. New build homes and acquisitions

There were 56,971 new build affordable homes completed in 2023-24. These were supplemented by 4,144 acquisitions of existing homes not previously used for affordable housing and 1,174 homes where there is currently no information on whether they are new build or acquisitions.

The 56,971 new build affordable homes represent an increase of 0.2% on the existing stock of all 25.40m homes in England at 31 March 2023 ^{[footnote 9]}. This is similar to recent years, with the proportion varying between 0.1% and 0.2% throughout the available period (since 1991-92).

Proportionally, of the 62,289 affordable homes delivered in 2022-23, 93% were new build and 7% were acquisitions (excluding unknowns). These proportions have changed considerably since the early 1990s, particularly after 2003-04. In 1992-93, 6 out of 10 new affordable homes were new build compared to more than 9 out of 10 in recent years.

Chart 7: Percentage of affordable housing completions by new build and acquisitions, England, 1991-92 to 2023-24

Note: The chart excludes completed affordable units where build type was unknown.

The data for this graph is available in Live Table 1009.

7. Starts on site

Since 2015-16, the department has published live tables with starts on site ^{[footnote 10]} of affordable housing to provide a leading indicator of affordable supply. However, starts funded directly by local authorities or by planning agreements not reported via Homes England or the Greater London Authority only started being collected in 2016-17 and are collected on a voluntary basis. This means 2015-16 data does not include this data and that subsequent years may still be under reporting it.

In 2021-22, First Homes ^{[footnote 11]} were introduced as a tenure and are reported either via Homes England or local authorities (through the Local Authority Housing Statistics data return)^{[footnote 12]}. However, Homes England cannot provide information on starts of First Homes. While their delivery programme is now finished and no further starts are currently expected, First Homes starts remain undercounted in this release and accompanying tables. 

There were 43,439 starts on site in England in 2023-24, compared to 71,771 in the previous year, a 39% decrease. This decrease is in part explained by the small number of starts on site in London, especially those by the Greater London Authority during the year. In 2023-24, the Greater London Authority had 2,358 starts on site, compared to 25,907 in the previous year, a 91% decrease ^{[footnote 13]}. By contrast, the number of London starts not by the Greater London Authority increased by 67%, albeit these are much smaller by comparison (from 479 in 2022-23 to 798 in 2023-24). Overall, the number of starts in London decreased by 88% between 2022-23 and 2023-24 and is at the lowest for the period for which there is comparable data (from 2016-17 onwards).

Chart 8: Affordable housing starts on site by tenure, England, 2016-17 to 2022-24

The data for this chart is available in Live Table 1000S.

The number of starts decreased across all tenures, although affordable rent and shared ownership continue to account for the largest number of starts where the tenure is known. The number of London affordable rent starts was below ten units, due to the low number of starts by the Greater London Authority and the end of 2016-23 Affordable Homes programme that was the main funding source for this tenure.

The increase in the number of starts where tenure is unknown since 2019-20 is due to the introduction of units delivered via Strategic Partnerships ^{[footnote 14]}. These units will have their tenure confirmed at a later stage. In 2023-24, these accounted for 47% of all starts.

8. Changes to this release

The commentary on affordable housing and overall housing gross supply will be included in the Housing supply: net additional dwellings statistical release, as this year the order of publication changed. This is scheduled for the 28 November 2024.

The live tables accompanying this release have been restructured to make them accessible.

8.1 Summary of Revisions

This release includes revisions to 2018-19 and 2022-23 data since these were last published in June 2024, with further details included in the technical notes:

• Removing 112 shared ownership starts-on-site from the London Borough of Newham in 2018-19. This is due to a revision to the Homes England data which had not been implemented in the data set.

• Revisions to the 2022-23 data since June 2024 due to local authorities reviewing of their submitted LAHS data as part of the new data submission for 2023-24 and/or subsequent data quality checks.

9. Tables and open data

See the live tables accompanying this release.

See the open data accompanying this release.

10. Technical notes

Please see the accompanying technical notes for further details.

11. Next release

The date of the next release is pre-announced on GOV.UK.

1. Affordable homes for rent includes the following tenures: social rent, London affordable rent, affordable rent and intermediate rent. ↩

2. Non-registered providers can only receive Homes England funding for shared ownership units, and only since 2018-19. However, a small proportion of social rent and affordable rent units funded by Homes England since 2020-21 had as lead organisation a non-registered provider, which at later date will be handed over to either a local authority or a private registered provider. These units have been classified as “unknown” provider and with “other” funding in Live Tables 1000S, 1000C, 1011S and 1011C. Since 2020-21, this impacted a total of 69 starts and 150 completions of social rent and 354 starts and 874 completions of affordable rent. ↩

3. Please see the Housing statistics and English Housing Survey glossary for a definition. ↩

4. Since 2017-18, details of s106 units for London reported by the Greater London Authority (GLA) are estimates based on the total number of nil grant homes recorded on projects within the GLAOps. ↩

5. The local authorities created on 1 April 2023 (Cumberland, Westmorland and Furness, North Yorkshire and Somerset) are not included in the latest available lookup table. They were classified as Largely Rural (rural including hub towns 50-79%). ↩

6. For the purpose of this bulletin, “rural” includes the following 3 categories: Mainly Rural (rural including hub towns >=80%), Largely Rural (rural including hub towns 50-79%) and Urban with Significant Rural (rural including hub towns 26-49%). ↩

7. For the purpose of this bulletin, “urban” includes the following 3 categories: Urban with City and Town, Urban with Minor Conurbation and Urban with Major Conurbation. ↩

8. Variables i1a (new build) and i6a (acquisitions) in Section I of the data return. For years prior to 2011-10, this was collected combined in a variable that is named i1z in the LAHS historical open data. ↩

9. MHCLG Live Table 104. ↩

10. It should be noted that starts on site are not planning applications. For further details, please see definition in the Housing statistics and English Housing Survey glossary. ↩

11. Homes England started recording First Homes completions in 2021-22. However, these are reported as market units in the accompanying tables to their release, but are counted as affordable housing in this release. These units are part of a small phase 1 pilot being delivered by the Single Land Programme, the starts on site for which are also reported as market units. A phase 2 grant funded pilot is delivering 1,500 First Homes units via the First Homes Early Delivery Programme 2021-23. Both pilots are in advance of the delivery of First Homes via Planning Policy. Homes England cannot separately identify starts on site that are First Homes. ↩

12. It is possible that some local authorities provided information on Homes England funded First Homes starts via LAHS. As there was no risk of double counting, and the information helps understand better the bigger picture, we have left these in. ↩

13. The figures in this release differ from the Greater London Authority published tables because they include units funded via Right to Buy receipts which are not included in the Greater London Authority’s tables since 2019-20 and exclude programmes delegate to Homes England to avoid double counting. ↩

14. Strategic partnerships were introduced in 2018 and work as long-term agreements between one or more housing associations and Homes England. Homes England’s funding of these units is based on a whole development programme rather than scheme-by-scheme. ↩