Housing Statistics for Scotland Quarterly Update: New Housebuilding and Affordable Housing Supply to end September 2025
This statistical publication presents latest quarterly figures to end September 2025 on new housebuilding and Affordable Housing Supply, along with annual rates of new housebuilding and affordable housing supply per head of population, with comparisons to other UK countries.
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Private sector led new housebuilding
The private sector is the biggest contributor to overall house building, accounting for just over three quarters (77.5%) of all homes completed in the year to the end of September 2025. Some of the homes the private sector builds will be built for social rent and subsequently reported in the affordable housing supply programme figures.
In the year to the end of September 2025, there were 14,225 private sector led house building completions and 11,815 starts, as Chart 2 indicates. Private sector led new build completions and starts have decreased by 5.0% (-751 homes) and 3.2% (-392) respectively in the year to the end of September 2025 compared with the previous year to the end of September.
Chart 2: Private sector new housebuilding starts and completions, 2004 to 2025 (years to the end of September)
Chart 2 shows the annual number of private sector led house building starts and completions from 2004 to 2025 (years to the end of September). Excluding 2020 (where Covid-19 impacted housebuilding), private sector completions were the lowest since the year to the end of September 2018 and starts were the lowest since the year to the end of September 2013.
Map B illustrates that East Lothian, Midlothian, Edinburgh and West Lothian are local authorities with the highest private sector led completion rates in the year to the end of September 2025 (rate of over 45 homes built per 10,000 population).
The lowest are Argyll & Bute, Clackmannanshire, Dumfries and Galloway, Dundee City, Falkirk, Inverclyde, Scottish Borders, Shetland, South Ayrshire, Stirling and West Dunbartonshire with rates of 15 or fewer homes built per 10,000 population.
Map B: New build housing – private sector completions: rates per 10,000 population, year to the end of September 2025
The latest quarterly data and comparison to the corresponding quarter in the previous year to end of September are shown in the ‘Quarterly Comparisons’ section. Timeseries data along with local authority breakdowns are contained in the supporting Excel tables.