Social housing in Tower Hamlets

35.9% of households in Tower Hamlets are social housing — council or housing-association homes — according to the 2021–22 Census. That is well above the UK average of 17.5%.

35.9%Social housing
43,215Social homes
120,491All households
Tower Hamlets35.9%
UK average17.5%

How much social housing is there in Tower Hamlets?

Tower Hamlets ranks 4th of 374 UK local authorities by social-housing share. Of its 120,491 households, 43,215 are social homes (35.9%) — renting from the council or a housing association.

How does Tower Hamlets compare with the UK average?

At +18.4 percentage points versus the UK average of 17.5%, Tower Hamlets sits well above the national level. It is among the highest shares in the country.

Open the Tower Hamlets social housing map →

Tower Hamlets at a glance

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

Schools

On the Department for Education's register, Tower Hamlets has 113 schools — 98 state-funded and 15 independent. That includes 66 primary and 17 secondary schools. Of the 39 with a published Ofsted grade, 95% are Good or Outstanding.

Nurseries

There are 130 nurseries and pre-schools on Ofsted's childcare register in Tower Hamlets, offering about 5,226 registered childcare places. Childminders are not counted — Ofsted withholds their addresses.

Deprivation

The median neighbourhood in Tower Hamlets sits in decile 3 of 10 on its nation's deprivation index, and 43% of its 169 neighbourhoods fall in the most-deprived national fifth.

House prices

The median neighbourhood price is about £7,246 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 Tower Hamlets

See Tower Hamlets 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 Tower Hamlets?

“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).