Birmingham’s housing crisis is set to deepen to become the worst in the UK, according to new research. Socio-economic experts at Marrons looked ahead to how many more homes every city would need by 2040 to meet growing populations.
Known as the ‘youngest city in Europe’, Birmingham faces property issues as 40% of its residents are aged under 25 and will need their own homes in the coming two decades. At the same time, the city faces under-occupancy at older people’s properties, where many over-65s remain in homes that are much larger than they need, explained the Marrons team.
Birmingham will need to build more than 127,600 new homes in less than two decades. That is the most needed for any English local authority area, the study found.
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Birmingham was predicted to not only face delivering the highest number of homes by 2040 but also having the highest number of under-occupied properties. Marrons said the city is also poised to experience the most significant decline in affordable housing.
The analysis highlighted that that by 2040 there were expected to be:
- 76,526 more people aged 16 and over living in Birmingham – this includes 42,328 people aged 66 and over
- 20,045 first-time buyers aged between 25 and 44
- 6,506 people of student age from 18 to 22 living in Birmingham
The number of new properties needed by 2040 in Birmingham was far greater than even Greater London’s Tower Hamlets and Barnet boroughs, which will need 102,547 and 93,929 new homes respectively.
The research found that more than 46,800 people aged 66 and over were currently living in homes larger than necessary that had two or more bedrooms left unoccupied. If this trend continues, more than 128,800 households of that age group are expected to be under-occupied in 2040.
At the same time, Birmingham’s student-age population is projected to grow by 6% to nearly 107,000 people in 2040 across its five main universities of University of Birmingham, Aston University, Birmingham City University, University College Birmingham and Birmingham Newman University.
While its social housing stock is estimated to plummet by an additional 19,170 properties despite 20,625 people being on the city’s housing register in 2023.
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Elsewhere in the Midlands, Shropshire is expected to see the most substantial increase of older people aged over 66 with a projected rise of 48% by 2040.
Coventry is forecast to see the greatest surge in its student-age population by 32% along with a rise of those in the first-time buyer category, rising 39% in the next two decades.
Charlotte El Hakiem, planning director at Marrons, said: “As the UK’s second-largest city and the economic heart of the West Midlands, Birmingham faces massive housing pressures.
“It has a large young population that requires affordable housing to help them get onto the property ladder; a significant ageing population, which has led to high levels of under-occupancy.
“There is also a burgeoning student-age population that requires purpose-built accommodation and it is also suffering from dwindling numbers of social housing stock caused by the Right to Buy scheme, demolitions and a lack of newly-constructed properties.
“Building a range of homes to suit many different needs is not only a priority but a necessity. It creates more choice, aids first-time buyers onto the property ladder, gives expanding families additional space, helps the ageing population downsize and live in homes more suitable for their needs, and adds to the supply of affordable housing.”
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Marrons used data from the latest Office for National Statistics Census, 2018-based population projections, local authority housing registers, affordable housing stock records and extrapolated housing requirement figures using the government’s standard method.
