https://www.resolutionfoundation.org/publications/housing-outlook-q2-2025/
Housing is fundamental to living standards. It’s no surprise that a Government committed to raising living standards has put housing at the heart of its agenda – most notably through its ambition to build 1.5 million new homes by the end of this Parliament. And it is most families’ largest expense, meaning that disposable incomes are highly sensitive to changes in rents or mortgage payments.
The Resolution Foundation has today launched a new website tracking 12 indicators of how housing is affecting living standards in the UK. These include both indicators which describe the situation today – such as affordability and housing quality – but also forward-looking indicators like housing supply and the performance of the planning system.
To demonstrate the value of these indicators, this Housing Outlook highlights five important housing trends that deserve greater attention. Each sheds light on the link between housing and living standards, and all are based on data available from our indicators page.
At the sharpest end of the housing crisis, the number of households in temporary accommodation continues to rise. 128,000 households are currently living in temporary accommodation in England, over half of which (72,000) are from London. Two important drivers are the decline in the availability of homes in the social rented sector (annual social rent completions have fallen by 83 per cent since 1992–93 in England), and a housing benefit system which increasingly falls short of covering claimants’ rents in the private sector (48 per cent of privately renting families on Universal Credit do not have their housing costs fully covered by Local Housing Allowance in Great Britain). Another symptom of the difficulties in affording housing is the growing number of young adults living with their parents: in 2023–24, over half (51 per cent) of 19–29-year-olds in the UK did so, up from 41 per cent in 1994–95.
To the extent that housing supply is key to easing the crisis in the long-term, we are starting from a very low base. Planning approvals in England for new housing developments were at record lows in 2024, reflecting a drop in applications, and underscoring the scale of the challenge facing the Government.