Immigrants do not dominate U.K. social housing

The claim

An online narrative claims that immigrants outnumber UK-born people residing in social housing in England and Wales. 

A chart surfaced on social media titled "Proportion of household reference persons who are in social housing by country of birth (England and Wales)." It cites raw 2021 census data published by the Office of National Statistics (ONS) as its source.

A post (archived here) shared the graph as proof that most social housing has been allocated to immigrants, saying, in part, "According to this graph the majority of people in social housing are not the native people. This is not sustainable."

Another account posted the chart on X, with the post (archived here) gathering more than 28,000 views at the time of writing. It said, in part, "Foreigners, not born in GB with absolutely no connection to Britain and not even able to speak English, have literally taken over the social welfare housing list."

Most social housing in England and Wales has not been allocated to immigrants, however, nor does the graph shared online show that.

In fact

A spokesperson for the ONS told Logically Facts that while the data presented in the graph "appears to be accurate," it is "quite selective in the way it is being presented." 

The graph shows the percentage of a list of nationalities of the household reference person (the individual named as renting the property) that live in social housing, as per the census. It does not take into account the total U.K. population compared to the population of those normally residing in the U.K. but not born there.

A spokesperson for the ONS said to Logically Facts, "The overall percentage of people not born in England and Wales living in social rented housing is 18 percent." In contrast, it said the percentage of non-UK-born people living in social housing is 17 percent.

According to the 2021 ONS English and Welsh census, the data cited in the graph, 49.6 million respondents were born in the U.K. Of that number, 17 percent live in social housing, the spokesperson told Logically Facts, equating to around 8.5 million people.

According to the census, around 10 million respondents were non-UK-born. Of those, 18 percent live in social housing, it said, equating to approximately 1.8 million people – nearly five times less than English and Welsh nationals listed as living in social housing. 

The ONS does not collect census data for all of the U.K. (England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland) as suggested by the chart shared online; it only collects census data from respondents in England and Wales. 

The verdict

Immigrants do not outnumber English and Welsh people in social housing in England and Wales. We have marked this claim as misleading.