Tenure of household variable: Census 2021

Definition of tenure of household, categories, and changes since the 2011 Census for use with research and analysis using Census 2021 data.

Last updated:
28 November 2023

Mnemonic: hh_tenure
Applicability: Household
Type: Derived variable

Definition

Whether a household owns or rents the accommodation that it occupies.

Owner-occupied accommodation can be:

  • owned outright, which is where the household owns all of the accommodation
  • with a mortgage or loan
  • part-owned on a shared ownership scheme

Rented accommodation can be:

  • private rented, for example, rented through a private landlord or letting agent
  • social rented through a local council or housing association

This information is not available for household spaces with no usual residents.

Classification

Total number of categories: 9

Code Name
0 Owned: Owns outright
1 Owned: Owns with a mortgage or loan
2 Shared ownership: Shared ownership
3 Social rented: Rents from council or Local Authority
4 Social rented: Other social rented
5 Private rented: Private landlord or letting agency
6 Private rented: Other private rented
7 Lives rent free
-8 Does not apply*

*Households with no usual residents.

View all tenure of household classifications.

Quality information

There is evidence of people incorrectly identifying their type of landlord as ”Council or local authority” or “Housing association”. You should add these two categories together when analysing data that uses this variable.

Read more in our housing quality information for Census 2021 methodology.

Background

Read about how we developed and tested the questions for Census 2021.

Comparability with the 2011 Census

Highly comparable

What does highly comparable mean?

A variable that is highly comparable means that it can be directly compared with the variable from the 2011 Census. The questions and options that people could choose from may be slightly different, for example the order of the options may be swapped around, but the data collected is the same.

England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland comparisons

Highly comparable

What does highly comparable mean?

A variable that is highly comparable means that it can be directly compared with the variable from Scotland and Northern Ireland. The questions and options that people could choose from may be slightly different, for example the order of the options may be swapped around, but the data collected is the same.

Find out more about variables produced for Census 2021 in Northern Ireland and Census 2022 in Scotland.

Census 2021 data that uses this variable

We use variables from Census 2021 data to show findings in different ways.

You can:

Alternatively, you can also create a custom dataset.

Other datasets that use this variable