Precarity by design: Managed insecurity and housing reform in neoliberal England

England’s private rented sector has become a central site through which contemporary welfare states govern housing insecurity under conditions of housing financialisation and welfare restructuring. While existing scholarship provides sophisticated accounts of housing precarity, financialisation and neoliberal housing governance, it offers no coherent explanation of how substantial legal reform can strengthen tenant protections while leaving the political economy of housing largely intact. This article addresses that gap by developing the concept of managed insecurity, a theoretical framework explaining how contemporary welfare states reconcile institutional reform with enduring political-economic continuity. Adopting a critical socio-legal and political-economy approach, the article combines doctrinal and interpretive policy analysis to examine the Renters’ Rights Act 2025, widely regarded as the most significant reform of England’s private rented sector in a generation. It argues that the legislation strengthens tenant protections, redistributes institutional authority and enhances regulatory accountability while leaving the financialised political economy of housing largely unchanged. By distinguishing between procedural reform, institutional change and political-economic transformation, the article demonstrates how contemporary welfare states can expand legal protections while preserving market-centred systems of housing provision. In developing the concept of managed insecurity, the article offers a sociological explanation of how institutional reform and structural continuity coexist under financialised capitalism, advancing debates on housing governance, welfare-state transformation and the governance of market-generated insecurity.