Social housing in Reading

16.1% of households in Reading are social housing — council or housing-association homes — according to the 2021–22 Census. That is close to the UK average of 17.5%.

16.1%Social housing
10,915Social homes
67,634All households
Reading16.1%
UK average17.5%

How much social housing is there in Reading?

Reading ranks 151st of 374 UK local authorities by social-housing share. Of its 67,634 households, 10,915 are social homes (16.1%) — renting from the council or a housing association.

How does Reading compare with the UK average?

At -1.4 percentage points versus the UK average of 17.5%, Reading sits close to the national level.

Open the Reading social housing map →

Reading at a glance

Beyond housing, here is what the map's other datasets say about Reading.

Schools

On the Department for Education's register, Reading has 73 schools — 63 state-funded and 10 independent. That includes 41 primary and 11 secondary schools. Of the 26 with a published Ofsted grade, 92% are Good or Outstanding.

Nurseries

There are 97 nurseries and pre-schools on Ofsted's childcare register in Reading, offering about 3,853 registered childcare places. Childminders are not counted — Ofsted withholds their addresses.

Deprivation

The median neighbourhood in Reading sits in decile 6 of 10 on its nation's deprivation index, and 11% of its 100 neighbourhoods fall in the most-deprived national fifth.

House prices

The median neighbourhood price is about £4,322 per m², from Land Registry sold prices matched to EPC floor areas.

Broadband

Median available download speed is about 1,000 Mbit/s — what can be ordered, not what residents have bought (Ofcom Connected Nations).

Explore Reading

See Reading through the other lenses on the interactive map — house prices, recorded crime and anti-social behaviour, road & rail noise, deprivation and broadband:

Which areas are similar to Reading?

“Social housing” means households renting from a council/local authority or a housing association, counted on census day (2021 in England, Wales & Northern Ireland; 2022 in Scotland). Local-authority figures are aggregated by this site from small-area Census data and may differ from official totals; Scotland reports a combined social-rented figure. Sources: ONS Census 2021 (TS054), National Records of Scotland Census 2022 (UV404) and NISRA Census 2021, under the Open Government Licence v3.0. See the full notes and disclaimer.
Figures: 2021–22 Census · Page updated 15 August 2026 · Download the full dataset (CSV, all 374 councils).