Housing
House prices, housing supply, and the UK's growing deficit.
House prices
House prices since 1952
Nominal prices hide the role of inflation. The 1980-pound line strips it out — the gap between the two lines is the share of the rise that is pure inflation, the line itself is the real (inflation-adjusted) increase.
UK average house price, 1952–2025
The housing deficit
The housing deficit
England's housebuilding has run below target almost every year since 2006. The dashed line shows the official target (200k pre-2016, 300k from 2016). The gap between the bars and the line is the annual shortfall.
England homes built per year vs target, 2006–2025
Homes per 1,000 people — UK vs European peers
Research
Population growth vs infrastructure
From the Centre for Policy Studies — How Many Homes Does the UK Need? (2025)
Charts reproduced from How Many Homes Does the UK Need? by Ben Hopkinson, Centre for Policy Studies (CPS), July 2025. Original data sources: DLUHC, ONS, CPS analysis. Read the full report →
Then & now
1980 vs 2024 — what your money buys
The headline housing-cost story is real, but it sits alongside a less-noticed shift in tenure: ownership has barely moved, while the social-rented sector has halved and the private-rented sector has doubled.
| 1980 | 2024 | |
|---|---|---|
| Average house price | £22,677 | £268,000 |
| In 1980 pounds | £22,677 | £55,833 |
| Price-to-earnings ratio | ~3.5× | ~8.0× |
| Home ownership rate | ~58% | 62.5% (2021) |
| Peak ownership (2003) | — | 71% (declined since) |
| Social rented | ~32% | 17.1% (2021) |
| Private rented | ~10% | 20.3% (2021) |
Despite a 2.5× real increase in house prices, the home ownership rate has barely changed since 1980. The main shift has been from social renting (halved from ~32% to 17%) to private renting (doubled from ~10% to 20%). Right to Buy transferred ~2 million council homes to private ownership.
Sources: Nationwide Building Society house price index, ONS CPI, MHCLG housing supply statistics, Centre for Policy Studies (2025), Centre for Cities (2023), Census 2021.
Asylum accommodation
People receiving asylum support, by local authority
The Home Office provides housing and/or a weekly allowance to people seeking asylum who would otherwise be destitute, while their claim or appeal is decided, and to some refused applicants who cannot yet leave the UK. Most are placed in longer-term dispersal housing, provided by Home Office contractors and mostly rented from private landlords; when that runs short, contingency accommodation such as hotels is used. People granted refugee status leave asylum support. Figures count people, including children and other dependants, at the date shown, and are recorded against the local authority of their registered address.
People receiving asylum support in the UK, by quarter
Includes dependants. Contingency accommodation (mainly hotels) is only identified separately from December 2022. The total peaked at 123,758 on 30 September 2023, and the number in contingency accommodation at 58,469 on 30 September 2023; on 30 June 2026 the figures were 93,293 and 17,276.
- Asylum support — latest: 30 June 2026 · Home Office · next update 26 November 2026
Sources