"Whilst the overall number of tenancies in England and Wales continues to increase, that rate of growth has slowed during the last 12 months"
- Matt Trevett - The DPS
New data released by The Deposit Protection Service has revealed that new tenancies in England and Wales are occurring less frequently than they have in eight years.
The DPS’ The Private Sector Rental Review includes an analysis of official data from the country’s three Government‑approved tenancy deposit schemes, revealing how landlords registered 250,000 new deposits with the three schemes between October 2016 and September 2017, compared to just under 77,000 during the same period in 2023-4.
Tenants renting for longer
The data also revealed that the average length of a DPS-registered tenancy has increased by 121 days: from 789 days in 2021 to 910 at the end of 2024.
The DPS incorporated the results of its most recent tenant and landlord customer surveys into its report, highlighting that the proportion of tenant survey respondents who said they’d moved during the past 12 months more than halved - from 46% in April 2023 to 20% in October 2024. It also revealed that the proportion of tenant respondents who said they’d rented for between one and five years increased 12 percentage points (42% to 54%) between March and October 2024. 35% of tenant respondents said in October 2024 that they hadn’t moved despite wanting to: up 11 percentage points from 24% in March that year.
“Whilst the overall number of tenancies in England and Wales continues to increase, that rate of growth has slowed during the last 12 months," noted Matt Trevett, Managing Director at The DPS, “This is the first time the rental market has grown by less than 100,000 tenancies in any 12-month period during the past eight years.
He added, “Tenants are now spending just under two and a half years in a property on average, which is around four months’ longer than in 2021. A combination of high rents and a shortage of suitable rental properties means that it’s less common than ever to see tenants move.”
