3. Things you need to know about this release

What are household projections?

The 2016-based household projections provide statistics on the potential future number of households in England and its local authorities up to 2041. They show the household numbers that would result if the assumptions based in previous demographic trends in population and household formation were to be realised in practice.

We publish household population projections every two years. These latest projections supersede the 2014-based household projections. Breakdowns of overall projected numbers of households by household type are provisionally due to be published on 3 December 2018.

This is the first time Office for National Statistics has published household projections for England. They used to be published by the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG). The 2016-based household projections for England have not yet been formally reviewed for compliance with the Code of Practice for Statistics since their transfer from MHCLG to ONS. The Office for Statistics Regulation will conduct this review in the near future.

Household projections are not forecasts. They do not attempt to predict the impact of future government or local policies, changing economic circumstances or other factors that may influence household growth, such as the number of houses built. Household projections are not a prediction or forecast of how many houses should be built in the future. Instead, they show how many additional households would form if the population of England keeps growing as it did between 2011 and 2016 and keeps forming households as it did between 2001 and 2011. Therefore, household projections should be used as a starting point for calculating the future housing needs of a local area.

The methodology for the 2016-based household projections takes the previous 2014-based methodology as its starting point, with changes being made to reflect changes in data availability over time and changing assumptions about household formation and population change. The changes made to the methodology between the 2016-based and 2014-based household projections are more wide-ranging than the changes made between the 2014-based and 2012-based household projections. For more information about the methodological changes, please refer to the methodology document.