Households and Housing

Household Income and Consumption

Annual estimates of household consumption and incomes from the early C19th are available in the Bank of England's Millennium of Data Spreadsheet which combines historical estimates with current national accounts data to create continuous series up to the present.

House Prices and Housing Market Activity

Residential house price indices with a reasonable coverage and based on modern methods of construction are only available for the UK from the late C19th. Recent work by Luke Samy is the first to construct indices based on actual transactional data that cover the period from the late Victorian era up to the start of WW2. His indices start in 1895 and end in 1939. Samy uses hedonic methods to adjust for quality changes over time, however the indices cover only London and the South East. These indices are available in Bank's Millennium of Data Spreadsheet and are linked to later estimates.

Some of these later estimates alongside many other housing market statistics can be found in Alan Holmans' Historical Statistics of Housing in Great Britain which has recently been digitised in pdf format by the Cambridge Centre for Housing & Planning Research

• Holmans' Historical Statistics of Housing in Great Britain

The LSE digital library also has digitised the Compendium of Building Society Statistics for a number of years which contains many useful historical series on housing market finance and activity.

• Compendium of Building Society Statistics 5th Edition
• Compendium of Building Society Statistics 6th Edition
• Compendium of Building Society Statistics 7th Edition

Information on historical data on dwellings investment and capital stocks can be found in the Capital and Productivity section.

Household Consumption and Saving

The Bank of England Quarterly Bulletin contained various useful articles on the development of household savings and how the measurement of the saving ratio was affected by inflation

• Personal saving and financial investment 1951-65 (QB 1966 Q3) pp.246-256
• The personal saving ratio (QB 1976 Q1) pp.53-73
• Inflation-adjusted saving and sectoral balances (QB 1982 Q2) pp.239-242
• Inflation-adjusted saving and sectoral balances (QB 1984 Q2) pp.231-234
• Inflation-adjusted sectoral saving and financial balances (QB 1988 Q2) pp.232-235
• Inflation-adjusted sectoral saving and financial balances (QB 1989 Q2) pp.246-251
• Inflation-adjusted sectoral saving and financial balances (QB 1990 Q2) pp.228-231
• Saving, wealth and consumption (QB 2001 Q1) pp.91-99
• Household saving (2009 Q3)

The Institute of Fiscal Studies carried out a very useful survey of Consumption Trends between 1975 and 1999 using information from the Family Expenditure Survey and other sources:

• Consumption Trends in the UK 1975-1999

An 2015 article by ONS also discusses alternative ways of measuring the saving ratio

• Alternative Measures of Real Household Disposable Income and the Saving Ratio

UK House prices

Information on the construction of the current UK House Price Index can be found below:

• About the UK House Price Index

Earlier useful guides to the construction of house price indices by ONS and the Institute of Fiscal (IFS) studies are also useful to consult:

• Official House Price Statistics Explained - ONS article 2013
• IFS Briefing Note - Measuring House Prices: a Comparison of Different Indices - 2014

The following titles are available to select in the dropdown menus of this section.

• Consumer Trends
• Family Expenditure Survey
• The Effects of Taxes and Benefits on Household Income

Please select a publication title and year from the boxes below to narrow down the list. Alternatively type in a general search term. The available excel and pdf files are shown in the table. If the publication you are looking for is not in this section please see the complete list of downloadable publications. 

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