Tenure types of London households over time (1961-2021)
Last updated: December 2024
What does this indicator show?
This indicator shows the proportion of households that were owned or rented through the social or private rented sectors. We use data from the census, starting in 1961 and up to the most recent one, in 2021.
What does it tell us?
30.1% of London’s households are privately rented - the highest proportion since 1971. The proportion of London households in private rented accommodation was at its peak in 1961 (45.5%) and decreased to 13.9% in 1991. Since then, it has increased each decade to its current level.
The opposite trend is seen in both owner occupied housing and social housing. The proportion of London households which were owner-occupied was increasing from the 1960s and until the early nineties, when the rates of home ownership peaked at 57.2% in 1991. However, home ownership rates have declined since, reaching 46.7% in the latest census.
Households that were socially rented peaked in 1981 at 34.8% of all London households. In the following decades, the proportion of socially rented households has slowly fallen to 23.1% in 2021.
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