Following UK house prices

Plenty of people keep an eye on house prices while they think about a move.

The most reliable figures are free to read. They come from the official land registers and the Office for National Statistics (ONS). These notes explain where the figures come from, how to read them and how to look up your own area.

Where the official figures come from

The UK House Price Index, or UK HPI, tracks the value of homes across the UK. HM Land Registry, Registers of Scotland, Land and Property Services Northern Ireland and the ONS produce it together.

It uses sales of homes bought for cash and with a mortgage. Its figures go back to 1995 in England and Wales, 2004 in Scotland and 2005 in Northern Ireland. You can see them for each region, county and local authority, and for each London borough.

The latest picture

The ONS published its latest house prices on 21 October 2026. The average UK house price rose by 0.9% in the 12 months to August 2026, to £273,000.

The average was £294,000 in England, £216,000 in Wales and £198,000 in Scotland. These are provisional estimates. The ONS now publishes house prices each month alongside private rents. Its next release is due on 18 November 2026.

Reading the newest months

The UK HPI is built from sales that have completed, at the very end of the conveyancing process. That makes it slower to appear than measures based on asking prices or mortgage approvals. It also means it reflects the prices buyers paid.

In England and Wales, a sale usually reaches HM Land Registry between 2 weeks and 2 months after it completes. So the figures for the latest months are provisional. They can be revised as more sales are registered. The changes are usually small for the whole country. They can be larger for small areas, where there are fewer sales.

Looking up sales near you

HM Land Registry publishes Price Paid Data. It is a record of home sales in England and Wales going back to 1995. Each entry shows the price, the date the sale completed, the postcode and the type of home.

You can download the full files, or search by area with the online tool. Bungalows are not recorded as a separate type. Some sales are left out of the version used for the UK HPI, such as gifts and Right to Buy sales at a discount.

Prices and pay

The ONS also compares house prices with what people earn. In 2025 the typical home in England cost 7.6 times the typical full-time salary. In Wales it was 6.0 times.

Homes have become more affordable since these ratios peaked in 2021. Since then, typical sale prices have risen by 5% and average earnings by 25%. The ratio ranged from 4.1 in Hyndburn and in Kingston upon Hull to 25.2 in Kensington and Chelsea.

How many homes are selling

HM Revenue and Customs counts the UK property sales worth £40,000 or more each month. Each update carries provisional numbers for the month before. Read alongside prices, it shows how many homes are changing hands.