The number of households in the UK rose to 27.8m in 2019, up 0.9 per cent on the year before and 6.8 per cent compared to 10 years ago.
Of these, families numbered 19.2m, up 0.4 per cent year-on-year and higher by 6.8 per over the decade.
Multi-family households were the fastest-growing of all household types rising to 297,000 in 2019, up 75 per cent over the two decades cent since 1999. However, they currently represent the smallest share of households at 1.1 per cent.
Multi-family households describe situations where more than one unrelated individuals share a home, such as two couples house-sharing or a couple sharing with other adults.
The ONS said the rise in multi-family occupancy “may also reflect growth in multi-generational families choosing to live together or out of necessity owing to housing affordability, childcare or elderly care.”
Traditional couples still dominate
Of all families, married or civil partner couple households remained the most common at 66 per cent; while lone-parent families numbered 2.9m or 14.9 per cent.
Meanwhile, the number of people living alone reached 8.2m, or 29.5 per cent of all households, up by 20 per cent over two decades. London had the lowest number of one-person households at 23.9 per cent and the highest was in Scotland, at 35 per cent.
“This may reflect regional differences in housing affordability,” the ONS said.
The figures were extracted from Families and Households in the UK – Labour Force Survey 2019.
