Persons per Dwelling

What it measures

Persons per Dwelling is England's total population divided by the total dwelling stock, including vacant homes. In 2024, that's 58,377,923 people across 25,617,000 dwellings — 2.28 people per dwelling.

Neither ONS nor MHCLG publish this figure directly — population and dwelling stock are published as two separate series. We compute the ratio ourselves, which is what makes this a proprietary metric.

Why it's not the same as "household size"

This is the measure most easily confused with something ONS does publish directly: average household size. The difference matters. Household size only counts occupied households — it excludes vacant homes entirely. Persons per Dwelling divides by the full dwelling stock, vacant or not. When the two measures move differently, it's a genuine signal about vacancy rates, not a data error.

Who this is useful for

• Individual buyers and researchers — a sense-check on housing supply relative to population, distinct from the occupied-household view most housing commentary uses.
• Policy analysts — persons per dwelling falling over time, even slightly, means the housing stock has grown faster than the population — a genuinely different story from "not enough homes are being built," worth knowing which one the data actually supports.
• Corporates and housebuilders — a structural supply/demand reference point, independent of short-term price movements.

Reading the current trend

Persons per Dwelling in England fell from 2.33 in 2001 to 2.28 in 2024 — a small but consistent decline, meaning dwelling stock has grown marginally faster than population over this period. It's a slow-moving structural number, not one that swings much year to year.