Research - Re:shape

The scale today

This page sets out the evidence behind our case for Single Person Housing: housing designed around the needs of people living independently.

The research points to two connected pressures - the need for more homes overall, and a housing mix that responds more closely to changing household patterns.

Our particular focus is younger and working-age adults living in cities, broadly 18 to 45. Many are forming traditional family households later, facing housing costs for longer on a single income, and using their homes in different ways. That creates a longer period of adult life for which conventional housing options are not always well suited.

8.6m

People living alone in the UK, 2025

29.5%

Of UK households are one-person households

28.7%

Of 20-34-year-olds lived with their parents in 2025

+19.6%

Projected growth in one-person households in England, 2022-32

The housing continuum

A continuum with a missing rung.

Mainstream housing provides relatively few professionally managed options for working-age people who want to live independently and without compromise in major cities.

Student accommodation

Shared house or HMO

Single Person Housing

Underserved

Conventional BTR & private rental

Family housing & ownership

Why now

Three forces shaping how people live.

~8 years later

Average age at first marriage, UK: c.23-25 in 1972 vs. c.31-33 today

Later household formation

People are reaching major life milestones later, extending the period in which many adults live independently before forming a family household.

10.6×

Typical London house price, relative to workplace-based earnings

Affordability

Conventional independent housing is difficult to access on one income. In London, only 29% of 25-34 year-olds owned their home in 2019, down from 57% in 1990.

28%

Of working days conducted at home, autumn 2024

Changing ways of living and working

Changing working patterns have increased the role of the home and neighbourhood as places to live, work and spend time, raising the value of well-designed private and shared space.

The response

Single Person Housing

A private home, useful shared space and professional management - designed around the economics and lifestyles of one-person urban households.

Single
Person
Housing

Private.

A genuinely personal home, not a bedroom in someone else's house share.

Connected.

Useful shared space expands what residents can access well beyond their private home.

Managed.

Professional, on-site management provides service, consistency and accountability.

Affordable by design.

Space, density and shared amenity are used intelligently to improve the economics of urban living.

Wider housing context

Housing delivery remains below national ambitions.

Net additional homes in England

Rental supply remains constrained too.

The wider rental market is also under pressure. Institutional Build to Rent development has slowed, while the stock available to rent in major cities remains below pre-pandemic levels. Regulatory and taxation changes are among the pressures affecting landlord investment decisions across both institutional and private rental supply.

15%

Reduction in rental stock across London and the UK's Big Six cities versus 2019

1 in 3

Landlords surveyed by Rightmove in 2025 said they were considering exiting the market (sentiment, not confirmed exits)

Delivery

Purpose-designed housing for different cohorts.

Single Person Housing describes the need. These are the two established models we use to deliver against it.

Purpose-built Shared Living

Who it serves: Primarily working-age single adults
Planning context: Recognised within London planning policy as Large-scale Purpose-built Shared Living
London Plan recognised
Also known as: Shared living / co-living

Purpose-built Student Accommodation

Who it serves: Students in higher education
Planning context: Established purpose-built student housing model (PBSA)
Also known as: PBSA / student housing

Scope

What this research does not claim.

Single Person Housing is one part of a broader housing response.
Three boundaries are important.

It does not replace family housing.

Britain needs more family homes. The research is simply that housing supply should also reflect the full range of households being formed.

It does not replace affordable or social housing.

Different tenures address different parts of housing need. Single Person Housing should complement, not substitute for, affordable and social housing.

It is not for everyone.

It is designed around a particular set of residents and circumstances. Its value comes from providing greater choice, not being a universal housing model.

Thesis in practice

Oval Brewery, Bethnal Green

A Shared Living development moments from London Fields and Broadway Market, bringing the principles explored in this research into a live London project. The design retains and celebrates the existing industrial brickwork, layering new rental studios above active ground-floor uses and shared amenity.

Status: Consent secured
Borough: Tower Hamlets
Typology: Shared Living
Homes: 222 studios, 24 affordable

View project

Sources

Office for National Statistics, Families and Households in the UK: 2025.

Office for National Statistics, Young adults living with their parents: 2025.

Office for National Statistics, Household Projections for England: 2022-based (published 28 October 2025).

Office for National Statistics, Housing affordability in England and Wales, 2025 data.

Office for National Statistics, Labour Force Survey, homeworking estimates, autumn 2024.

Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, Net Additional Dwellings, England (2019–20 to 2024–25 releases).

Rightmove, Rental Trends Tracker / market commentary, 2025.

Savills, UK rental stock analysis, London and the Big Six cities, 2025.

Greater London Authority, London Plan (Large-scale Purpose-built Shared Living).