Households and Housing – Overview
This section contains data related to the household spending and income and the housing market. Aggregate household consumption and income data comparable to modern day national accounts measures are available back to the C19th. House price data using modern hedonic methods are available from the late C19th. Digitised periodicals include Consumer Trends and the Family Expenditure Survey Reports.
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 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
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)
UK House prices
Information on the construction of the current UK House Price Index can be found below: Earlier useful guides to the construction of house price indices by ONS and the Institute of Fiscal (IFS) studies are also useful to consult:
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.