English Housing Survey

The English Housing Survey (EHS) is a major government survey into homes and housing in England.

You can read the latest reports for 2017-18 and reports going back to 2009 on the GOV.UK website.

Key findings

Home ownership:

• Owner occupation is the most prevalent tenure in England. Among owner occupiers, there are more households who own their home outright than who own with a mortgage.
• 12% of owners rented part or all of their home out using home sharing organisations.

Private rented sector:

• About one in five households (4.5 million) in England live in the private rented sector, making it the second largest tenure.
• 63% of private renters reported having no savings, whilst 11% had savings of £16,000 or more.

Social rented sector:

• 17% of households live in the social rented sector. A greater proportion of households rent from housing associations than local authorities.

Neighbourhoods:

• Those with more positive views of the neighbourhood also tend to report higher well-being.

Method

The EHS is a large-scale complex survey with two stages: an interview in all selected homes and a visual inspection by a qualified surveyor of a subsample of homes. The EHS is conducted throughout the year across England. The sample is scientifically chosen to represent the wider English population.

Latest report