The number of people on the social housing register in England could top two million by 2034, a property consultancy firm has forecast.

According to JLL, while more than 62,000 affordable homes were built last year, the housing waiting list grew by 43,000 and could hit two million by 2034 on current trends.

In December, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government revealed that there were 1.33 million households on local authority housing registers (waiting lists) in the year to 31 March 2024.

This represented an increase of 3% compared to 31 March 2023 and the highest it has been since 2014. While 62,000 affordable homes were completed, it wasn’t enough to overcome the growth in demand, resulting in a jump of 43,000. This means that England needed to build 105,000 affordable homes, just to address the annual increase in the waiting list.

Demolitions and social housing sales also erode completion numbers. 2023/4 figures are yet to be released but if they follow a similar trend to the previous year, around 3,200 homes will be lost to demolitions and 11,000 to right to buy.

JLL says that the scale of the problem is such that, at current building rates, it will take 21 years to clear England’s current housing waiting list – if nobody was added.

Marcus Dixon, Director of UK Residential Research at JLL, said: “The 43,000 increase in the number of households on the social housing waiting list is a stark reminder that while government housing targets remain ambitious, we must find a way to deliver more affordable homes at scale.

“Just to hold waiting list numbers steady, we’d have needed to have seen almost 70% more affordable homes delivered in the last 12-month period.”

The impacts are being felt on a regional level. With the exception of the East of England, every region has seen an increase in the number of people on the social housing register.

Region	2021	2022	2023	2024	Annual change %	Three year change %	Annualised change (Three year)
East Midlands	81591	80075	84027	87001	3.5%	7%	2.2%
East of England	99604	91313	89461	94406	5.5%	-5%	-1.8%
London	296322	307365	323637	336366	3.9%	14%	4.3%
North East	53084	50453	75985	68183	-10.3%	28%	8.7%
North West	172641	188429	203656	207173	1.7%	20%	6.3%
South East	111701	116164	118037	118420	0.3%	6%	2.0%
South West	112584	122974	130604	130120	-0.4%	16%	4.9%
West Midlands	105636	104545	112398	116565	3.7%	10%	3.3%
Yorkshire and The Humber	152808	153406	149602	172377	15.2%	13%	4.1%
England	1185971	1214724	1287407	1330611	3.4%	12%	3.9%

The North East and North West are particularly heavily affected. The North East has seen a 28% increase in its social housing waiting list in the last three years, while the North West has seen a jump of around a fifth.

Taking the average over three years, the North East has seen an annual jump in demand of 8.7%, whilst the North West’s increases are at 6.3% a year.

Due to London’s relative population size, annualised percentage changes may not be as pronounced as in the North, but the scale of delivery needed is much greater.

In the last three years, 40,268 affordable homes were delivered in the capital, outstripping delivery in every other region, while the waiting list increased by 40,044 at a time when the cost of development is increasing.

It is a similar picture across all tenures in the capital. Despite the government’s new measure for housing need reducing the overall housing target for Greater London from 100,000 to 80,000 homes per annum, the difference between recent completions (of all tenures) and the revised London housing target means delivery would need to more than double (+114%) to satisfy need.

Dixon added: “Delivery of additional affordable homes has hovered around 60,000 units per annum for a few years now. It is abundantly clear that the current approach to delivery and funding isn’t sufficient to address the undersupply.

“If we expect housebuilders to build the majority of these affordable homes, we need to ensure that there is a market for completed units (through more partnerships and better communication around section 106) as well as sufficient occupier demand cross-tenure.”