Social housing lettings in England increased by 1% from the previous year but remain 34% lower than peak levels. The decline in social housing stock, due to factors like Right to Buy and demolitions, coupled with the positive impact of helping tenants sustain tenancies, contributes to a shortage of available social housing. Despite government targets to increase social housing supply, the demand is likely to outstrip supply, leading to longer waiting times for those in need.
262,942 social housing lettings were made in England from April 2024 to March 2025
- 1% higher than the previous year,
- 34% lower than 2013/14 when a record high number of lettings were made, and
- 16% higher than 2020/21 when a record low number of lettings were made (which coincided with the COVID 19 pandemic).
- 330,000 social housing lettings on average have been made each year over the past 18 years, with annual rates being lower than average for the past nine years.
Registered providers work hard from the lettings stage onwards to help people sustain their tenancies and prevent unnecessary evictions. Health and social care policy over the past 30 to 40 years has focused on treating people at home and supporting people to remain in their home for as long as it is feasible for them to do so, and even when it’s not, helping people to move to specialist supported housing, such as extra housing schemes where they can continue to receive health and social care services in a home of their own. Inevitably, the positive impact this for social housing tenants to keep their home, affects the amount of social housing available to let.
The amount of social housing available to let is also influenced the total of social housing stock, which changes based on the number of new social homes built and the amount of existing social homes disposed of, through the right to buy, demolition or other means. The social housing sector has shrunk, with the number of homes for social rent falling from about 4.0 million to around 3.8 million over the past decade. This decline is attributed to factors like Right to Buy sales, conversions to Affordable Rent, and demolitions. Typically, each year the social housing sector loses more homes than it builds, meaning the overall number of properties potentially available to let reduces. The UK government has ambitious targets for increasing the number of social homes built each year, as do the governments for Scotland and Wales. However, a cautionary lesson can be learnt from England’s neighbours, as both of these nations have not achieved the house Biden targets set for themselves.
The total social lettings made in the most recent year (262,000) compared to (1.3m) of the total number of households on local authority housing waiting list and compared 6% (4.1m) of the total social housing stock in England. Based on the above figures, it would take five years to allocate housing to everyone on local authority housing registers. In reality, letting rates may well continue to fall, meanwhile housing register numbers will likely continue to increase, meaning people will have to wait longer to be offered the social housing that they need.
The positive work done by registered providers to help people remain in their home will continue to affect the number of homes available to let. But, letting rates will also be affected by the long-term trend of more social housing being sold or demolished than is built. Although the UK government’s ambition to increase the supply of social housing over the lifetime of this parliament is laudable, it’s far from certain as to whether the target will be achieved within the time scale set. Meaning, the demand for social rented housing will continue to outstrip the supply available for the medium to long-term. The consequence of this is that people with urgent needs to move, spend longer than is acceptable waiting to be allocated social housing.
