How many people are on social housing waiting lists?

There were 1,340,527 households on council housing registers, often called waiting lists, in England at the end of March 2025, according to MHCLG's Live Table 600, last updated 25 June 2026. The table, in the live tables on rents, lettings and tenancies, gives figures for every council back to 1987 and comes from the annual Local Authority Housing Statistics return.

The figures count households, not people. Each council sets its own rules on who can join, so a rise or fall can reflect a council reviewing or reopening its list rather than a change in need. There is no official national figure for how long people wait; councils publish their own banding and lettings information. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland publish separately.

Official sources: Live tables on rents, lettings and tenancies (Table 600) · Local authority housing statistics

The latest figure

The newest value is at Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG). More on it: Households in temporary accommodation (England).

When is the next figure out?

Quarterly, about four to five months after the snapshot date. January to March 2026 was published on 13 August 2026; April to June 2026 is provisionally due on 29 October 2026. The GOV.UK Content API lists the .ods tables for each release; each quarter has a new page URL

Every official release due in the next two weeks is on the release calendar.

Terms used in this answer

• Affordable housing
  In English planning policy, a defined set of tenures for people whose needs are not met by the market, including social rent, affordable rent and some low-cost home ownership.
• Social rent
  Rented homes owned by councils or housing associations, with rents set using a government formula and usually well below market rents.
• Administrative data
  Information collected by organisations while running a service, such as tax records, benefit claims or hospital activity, and then used to produce statistics.
• Rate per 100,000
  The number of events divided by the population and multiplied by 100,000, so areas of different sizes can be compared on a like-for-like basis.
• Year-on-year change
  The change between a figure for one period and the same period twelve months earlier, such as March this year compared with March last year.
• Headline figure
  The main summary number that a statistical release leads with, such as annual CPI inflation or quarterly GDP growth. Other measures in the same release can tell a different story.

Where the figures come from

• Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) statistics and Stat-Xplore
  Where to find DWP figures on Universal Credit, PIP, State Pension and Pension Credit, how to build a Stat-Xplore table and use the free Open Data API.
• MHCLG housing and homelessness statistics (with MoJ possessions and devolved equivalents)
  Official figures on temporary accommodation, rough sleeping, waiting lists, social lettings, evictions and tenure in England and the rest of the UK.

Related questions

• How many social housing homes are there in England?
• How many households are in temporary accommodation in England?
• How many evictions and repossessions are there in England and Wales?

This answer says where the official figures are published and how they are defined. It gives no verdict on any claim. To report an error, send a correction request. More questions about homelessness, social housing and renting: all Homelessness, social housing and renting questions.