Accommodation type, tenure, rooms and bedrooms, central heating and car or van availability in England and Wales, Census 2021 data.
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Release date:
5 January 2023
Next release:
To be announced
This page is also available in Welsh (Cymraeg) (PDF, 520KB).
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In 2021, there were 24.8 million households in England and Wales (23.4 million in England, 1.3 million in Wales), in which 58.6 million usual residents (98.3% of all usual residents) lived. The number of households has increased by more than 1.4 million since 2011 (from 23.4 million).
The proportions of households in different types of accommodation remained very similar across the decade from 2011 to 2021.
Almost 8 in 10 households lived in houses or bungalows, however the proportion decreased across the last decade (from 78.6%, 18.4 million in 2011 to 77.9%, 19.3 million in 2021).
More detailed data showed small changes in the proportion of households living in different types of houses or bungalow including:
The largest increase for any type of accommodation was for households in a flat, maisonette or apartment. In 2021, 21.7% (5.4 million) of households were in a flat, maisonette or apartment, up from 21.0% (4.9 million) in 2011.
The remaining 0.4% (104,000) were households that lived in a caravan, or other mobile or temporary structure. This was similar to the proportion in 2011, but with an increase in numbers (0.4%, 85,000).
The proportion of different accommodation types is relatively similar across both England and Wales. The biggest exception is London; more than half of the households in London lived in a flat, maisonette or apartment (54.0%, 1.8 million). This is considerably higher than all other English regions (varying from 21.6% in the South East to 11.4% in the East Midlands) and Wales (12.5%).
Tenure is whether a household rents or owns the accommodation that it occupies. Households that rent their accommodation were asked what type of landlord owns or manages it.
The census data on tenure in England and Wales show:
The data on accommodation ownership and renting can be broken down further to show that:
Overall home ownership (the percentage of households who owned their accommodation outright or with a mortgage, loan or shared ownership) was higher in Wales (66.4%) than in England (62.3%). Home ownership decreased slightly in both nations since 2011 (from 67.8% in Wales and 64.1% in England).
Two English regions had higher rates of overall home ownership than Wales: the South East (67.1%) and the South West (67.0%). However, Wales had a higher percentage of those who owned their home outright (38.0%) than any English region.
Within England, London had the lowest level of overall home ownership (46.8%) of any English region. London also had the highest proportion of households that rented privately (30.0%) or in the social rented sector (23.1%).
Within Wales, overall home ownership varied from 58.3% in Cardiff to 72.3% in Monmouthshire. Cardiff also had the highest percentage of households that rented their accommodation privately (24.3%), whereas Torfaen had the highest percentage of households in the social rented sector (23.8%).
Census 2021 used Valuation Office Agency (VOA) data to count the number of rooms in a dwelling. This was instead of using the approach from previous censuses of asking the question on the census form. All rooms in a dwelling apart from bathrooms, toilets, halls or landings, kitchens, conservatories, or utility rooms are counted. For households living in a shared dwelling, the number of rooms are counted for the whole dwelling and not the individual household.
Across England and Wales, 10.9% (2.7 million) of households had one or two rooms, 74.1% (18.4 million) had three, four or five rooms, 13.9% (3.5 million) had six, seven or eight rooms and 1.1% (278,000) had nine or more rooms.
The VOA method for counting number of rooms differs in several ways from the method used in the 2011 Census. For example, the VOA method includes storage rooms (which were excluded in the 2011 Census) but excludes kitchens, conservatories, and utility rooms (which were included in the 2011 Census). For this reason, Census 2021 data on number of rooms should not be directly compared with the equivalent 2011 Census data. For more information, see our Estimating the number of rooms in Census 2021: an update on imputation methods for Valuation Office Agency data article.
As in 2011, Census 2021 directly asked about the number of bedrooms available to the household.
The data show that the proportion of households with one, two, or three bedrooms decreased across the past decade, whereas the proportion with four or more bedrooms increased:
The percentage of households that had three bedrooms was higher in Wales (48.0%) than in England (40.0%), whereas the percentage of households with four or more bedrooms was slightly higher in England (21.1%) than in Wales (20.6%).
Occupancy rating provides a measure of whether a household’s accommodation is overcrowded or under-occupied.
An occupancy rating of negative 1 or less implies that a household has fewer bedrooms than the standard requirement, positive 1 implies that they have more bedrooms than required, and 0 implies that they met the standard required. For further information on the definition for bedroom occupancy, see the Glossary.
Across England and Wales as a whole, 4.3% of households (1.1 million) had fewer bedrooms than required, down from 4.5% (1.1 million) in 2011. Some 26.5% (6.6 million) of households had the required number of bedrooms, and the remaining 69.2% (17.2 million) of households had more bedrooms than required.
In Wales, the proportion of households with fewer bedrooms than required (2.2%, 30,000) was lower than it was in England (4.4%, 1.0 million). In both nations, the proportion has decreased since 2011, when it was 2.9%, (38,000) in Wales, and 4.6%, (1.0 million) in England.
Conversely, the proportion of households that had more bedrooms than required was higher in Wales (76.3%, 1.0 million) than it was in England (68.8%, 16.1 million).
Across the regions of England, London had the highest proportion of households that had fewer bedrooms than required (11.1%, 380,000). This was highest for the local authorities of Newham (21.5%, 25,000) and Barking and Dagenham (17.8%, 13,000).
The vast majority of households across England and Wales reported that they had central heating in 2021 (98.5%, 24.4 million). However, 1.5% (367,000) of households had no central heating.
The most common responses were, mains gas (73.8%, 18.3 million), two or more types of central heating (not including renewable energy; 8.5%, 2.1 million) and electric (8.5%, 2.1 million).
England had a higher proportion of households with no central heating (1.5%, 352,000) compared with Wales (1.2%, 15,000).
Across the two nations, the local authority with the highest proportion of households with no central heating was the Isles of Scilly (17.5%). This was almost 12 times higher than the national estimate, and more than four times higher than the rate in the next highest local authority, Westminster (3.9%).
In Wales, Gwynedd had the highest proportion of households with no central heating (3.2%), more than twice the estimate for Wales as a whole. This was followed by Ceredigion (2.6%) and the Isle of Anglesey (2.3%).
For the first time, Census 2021 recorded whether a household’s central heating used renewable energy sources. Overall, 0.9% of households in England and Wales (233,000) used at least one renewable energy source. A total of 0.5% (135,000) reported using renewable energy alongside another type of central heating, and the remaining 0.4% (99,000) used only renewable energy sources.
The proportion of households using at least one renewable energy source was slightly higher in Wales (1.1%, 14,000) than in England (0.9%, 219,000).
Across the two nations, the local authority with the highest percentage of households using at least one renewable source was the Isles of Scilly (6.1%), followed by Ceredigion (4.1%). Ceredigion also had the highest percentage of households that used only renewable energy (2.6%).
The local authority with the lowest percentage of households using any renewable energy source was Blackpool (0.2%).
As in previous censuses, Census 2021 asked households how many cars or vans the household owned or had available to them. In 2021:
The percentage of households with no cars or vans decreased across the past decade in both England (23.5% in 2021, 25.8% in 2011) and Wales (19.4% in 2021, 22.9% in 2011).
London had a higher percentage of households with no cars or vans (42.1%) than the other English regions and Wales. The local authorities with the highest percentages of households with no cars or vans were also all in London, with the City of London (77.2%), Islington (66.9%), and Tower Hamlets (66.4%) topping the list.