Dwellings and households in Europe – some comparisons

In February 2024 the Centre for Cities published a report stating that the UK had a backlog of 4.3 million homes. Since publication the report has been cited in the media, and by those arguing that we need to build more houses.  The report looks at dwellings per person across a range of European countries and concludes that compared to these, the UK has not built enough.

 

Although dwellings per person is an interesting metric there are more appropriate ones to use. Probably the best one is the number of households in relation to the number of dwellings. The table below provides this data. 

 

 

	‘000	‘000	‘000
Country	Households	Dwellings	Surplus	Surplus
	N	N	N	%
	Million	Million	Million
Austria	4.068	4.952	0.9	21.7
Belgium	5.055	5.514	0.5	9.1
Denmark	2.8	3.2	0.4	14.3
France	31.05	33.721	2.7	8.6
Germany	40.9	43.1	2.2	5.4
Netherlands	8.043	8.046	0.0	0.0
Norway	2.581	2.67	0.1	3.4
Portugal	4.14	5.968	1.8	44.2
Spain	18.886	25.793	6.9	36.6
Sweden	4.832	5.096	0.3	5.5
England	23.42	24.928	1.5	6.4
Northern Ireland	0.769	0.814	0.0	5.9
Scotland	2.529	2.67	0.1	5.6
Wales	1.347	1.472	0.1	9.3
	‘000	‘000	‘000	%
Cornwall	250	285	35	14.0

 

 

The figures are interesting in a number of ways. With the exception of the Netherlands all of the countries had more dwellings than households, particularly in Iberia.  Excess dwelling figures for the countries of the UK are not significantly different from those of many other countries while the figure for Cornwall is quite high at 14%. 

 

We might assume from the CfC report that UK countries would have far lower surpluses than they do if other countries have been building more dwellings pro rata. It could also be assumed that these countries would not have issues regarding access to housing or affordability.  This is not the case.

 

So for various reasons most countries have dwellings which are not used for housing people. These extra dwellings may be holiday homes or lets or are just simply empty.  They are not available to people seeking access to housing. 

 

To conclude the CfC report tells us nothing about the number of dwellings required in the UK or elsewhere.

 

 

 

Sources

Watling, A; Breach, A, February 2023, The housebuilding crisis

The UK's 4 million missing homes, Centre for Cities.

 

Data for UK derived from ONS with data for other European countries from the relevant statistical agency.