Job-tied accommodation in the UK rental market: a national portrait

Purpose This paper aims to profile job-tied accommodation in the UK rental market: prevalence, payment terms, location and occupants. Design/methodology/approach This study uses the Annual Population Survey 2024 household data set: 18,001 renting employees in private households, weighted to UK totals. Estimates are occupant-level; the tied item refers to any household member’s job. Findings Tied accommodation houses 4.3% of UK renting employees (about 369,000); four-fifths pay rent. Prevalence peaks in agriculture, among large sectors in public administration and in southern regions outside London. Some 51% of occupants work in managerial, professional or associate-professional roles (39% of others), largely reflecting sector composition. Occupants hold degrees more often (44% versus 37%), are more often partnered and longer-tenured and show no detectable raw pay penalty. Conditional cash pay is 3.5% lower (interval includes zero), and 9% lower in sole-employed households (model-based). There the occupational contrast holds, a commute gap emerges and the degree gap disappears. Research limitations/implications Estimates are cross-sectional and non-causal and exclude communal employer housing. Practical implications In the private-household rental market, employer-linked housing has a disproportionately professional occupant profile and overlaps with key-worker housing. Originality/value Minimum-wage research has counted this category; to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first to profile its occupants, market position and landlord structure.