Start and completion stats drop across social and private sector

The Scottish social housing sector has recorded its lowest level of new housing starts since current records began, the latest official figures show.

New build starts by the social sector in the year to the end of September 2025 fell to 3,031, a drop of 10% and the lowest level since the beginning of the data collection in 1997.

HFS CHIEF EXECUTIVE JANE WOOD LOGO

Source: HFS

Jane Wood, chief executive, Homes for Scotland, said the figures showed the “stark reality” of Scotland’s housing emergency

Social sector completions stood at 4,122 homes, down 15%. This was the lowest since the year to the end of 2017.

Comparisons made in the official statistics exclude 2020, where Covid-19 impacted housebuilding.

Meanwhile, the private sector built 14,225 and started building 11,815 homes in the year, down 5% and 3.2%, respectively. Private completion figures were the lowest since 2018, while starts were at their lowest since 2013.

Together, the figures constitute an 8% drop in overall home completions, which stood at 18,347, and a 5% drop in starts, to 14,846.

There were 5,222 approvals, 5,494 starts, and 6,582 completions of homes funded by the Scottish government’s Affordable Housing Supply Programme, which constituted drops of 22%, 13% and 23%.

Responding to the figures, Jane Wood, chief executive of Homes for Scotland, said the statistics confirm “the stark reality of Scotland’s housing emergency”

“It is deeply concerning that both private and social sector home building are now at or near historic lows,” she said. 

“Without a significant uplift in overall supply there is no credible route to addressing the housing needs of this and future generations”.

She urged all parties to “urgently come forward with policies which deliver the homes Scotland needs” ahead of devolved elections next year.

“We now desperately need to see new deliverable housing sites expedited, infrastructure delivery support for SME home builders and a pause on further regulatory burdens that add cost and delay to new delivery,” she added.

Ahead of the Scottish Budget in January, Wood said it was “essential that any increased capital consequential funding coming to Scotland is used to confirm multi-year funding commitments to the Affordable Housing Supply Programme”.