Proportion of households in London that are overcrowded by tenure (2011/12 - 2021/22)
The extent to which housing in London meets household needs can be measured in a range of ways. One of those is overcrowding. Here this is defined using the “bedroom standard”. For example, a home is considered overcrowded if two or more people of a different sex (who are not a couple) over the age of 10 need to sleep in the same room.
On this measure, 7.9% of households in London are overcrowded.
Social rented housing has the highest proportion of households in overcrowded conditions, with 16.4% overcrowded. This contrasts with just 1.9% of owner-occupied households. 11.8% of private rented households are overcrowded.
Although there is variation by tenure type, overcrowding overall has remained the roughly same in London over the last 10 years, with 7.9% of households overcrowded in 2020/21 compared to 8.3% in 2011/12. Social rented households have seen an increase in overcrowding in that same period.