Social housing tenant satisfaction rises to 74% in England

Social housing tenant satisfaction in England rose to an average of 74% in 2025/26, up from 72% the previous year, according to figures published by the Regulator of Social Housing on 5 November 2026. The results cover tenants in low-cost rental accommodation provided by large social landlords.

The regulator’s Tenant Satisfaction Measures draw on almost half a million tenant surveys. Alongside residents’ views, the publication includes information reported by landlords on repairs, safety checks and complaints, allowing service performance to be considered alongside satisfaction.

Where has social housing tenant satisfaction improved?

The regulator reported increases in overall satisfaction across every survey collection method. Telephone interviews remained the most widely used approach, with satisfaction among tenants surveyed that way rising from 71% to 73%.

Repairs showed improvement in both landlords’ operational figures and tenants’ assessments. According to the regulator, landlords completed 83% of non-emergency repairs within their timescales in 2025/26, compared with 77% in 2023/24.

Average median satisfaction with the time taken to complete repairs reached 73%, up from 67% over the same two-year period. The regulator said this was the largest increase among the tenant perception measures. Satisfaction with the maintenance of the home also rose, from 71% to 74%.

Landlords reported responding within the Housing Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code deadlines to 86% of more than 319,000 stage one complaints during 2025/26. The regulator’s equivalent figure in 2023/24, the first year of collection, was 73%. This measures the timeliness of responses rather than whether residents were satisfied with the outcome.

Safety-check completion rates were also higher than when the measures began. For homes owned by large landlords at 31 March 2026, the regulator reported completion of required gas checks at 99.7%, fire checks at 98.9%, asbestos checks at 98.7%, water checks at 98.2% and lift checks at 98.0%. Asbestos, water and lift checks recorded the comparatively largest increases since 2023/24.

The results nevertheless showed continuing dissatisfaction. Around one in six surveyed tenants in low-cost rental accommodation — 16% — were unhappy with their landlord’s overall service, according to the regulator.

For low-cost home ownership, the average landlord median for overall satisfaction was 50%. The regulator identified this lower result as evidence that landlords still needed to improve services for shared owners; the headline rental figure therefore does not describe the experience of every tenure covered by the publication.

How the landlord performance measures work

The Regulator of Social Housing’s published analysis covers registered landlords with at least 1,000 homes. These providers must submit their results annually under its Transparency, Influence and Accountability standard. Smaller providers must also collect the information and make it available to tenants, although they are outside this large-landlord analysis.

The regulator sets detailed collection requirements, including the questions landlords must ask residents. Its release describes 22 measures reported for 2025/26: 12 tenant perception questions and 10 management information measures completed by landlords, covering matters including repairs, complaints and anti-social behaviour. The figures therefore combine residents’ judgements with providers’ own service records.

Comparisons between individual landlords require more context than a headline percentage. The regulator publishes information about each provider’s profile and survey methods, as well as overall satisfaction broken down by collection method, to support reasonable comparisons between organisations.

The official statistics package includes a headline report, a separate account of data quality and methodology, supplementary tables and the full dataset. These provide the supporting material for examining individual results rather than relying only on the national announcement.

The findings arrive alongside wider pressures on the sector’s resources. In its separate assessment of social housing risks and funding pressures, the regulator warned that landlords must balance sustained investment in existing homes with pressure to build more.

The composition of the sector is also changing. Separate social housing stock figures for England from the regulator showed that registered social landlords added around 36,000 homes overall, while the number of social rent homes declined.

The regulator wants feedback to shape services

Kate Dodsworth, deputy chief executive of the Regulator of Social Housing, described the survey evidence as the most comprehensive picture of tenant satisfaction across England’s large social landlords. She linked the reported improvement to providers listening to residents, identifying the issues that mattered to them and using that understanding to change services.

Dodsworth’s stated priority was for landlords to keep translating residents’ feedback into practical improvements. The regulator also pointed to its regulatory casework review, which emphasises using data to understand problems properly and improve delivery, rather than treating collection as an end in itself.

For regulation, the measures are one source of intelligence about whether landlords are delivering the required outcomes. The regulator said no regulatory judgement rests solely on these results: they must be considered together and alongside other relevant evidence. Higher sector-wide satisfaction is therefore not a stand-alone assessment of any individual provider.

What happens next with tenant satisfaction reporting?

Reporting remains an annual requirement for large landlords, giving the regulator a continuing source of evidence on service performance. The 5 November publication does not announce a date for the next results release or set a forecast for future satisfaction levels.

The regulator’s release also identifies a new measure covering electrical safety checks, to be reported for the first time for the 2025/26 reporting year. This adds a further area of safety oversight to the reporting framework, although the announcement does not give an electrical-check completion percentage.

Beyond data collection, the regulator says it takes appropriate action where landlords fail to deliver the outcomes required by its standards. Its remit includes driving improvements among social landlords, including local authorities, and overseeing housing associations’ governance, financial viability and value for money.