Introduction

The private rental sector (PRS) in England has undergone profound change since the turn of the century. Its market share has doubled from one in ten households to one in five, a level last seen in the early 1970s. This regrowth of the sector began around the turn of the century and accelerated after the global financial crisis (GFC). It has been at the expense of owneroccupation and social rented housing. As a result, the roles that the sector plays in the housing market have also changed in significant ways. The share of private tenants that are families has increased and that of single-person households has decreased. There are now relatively more middle-aged and fewer young adult private renters than there were before the turn of the century. Meanwhile, both the average length of occupancy in the current home and of residence in the PRS have increased. Despite this, the great majority of private tenants continue to have short-term leases and private renting in England remains characterised by insecurity of tenure.

The lack of significant change in the terms on which private tenants occupy their accommodation reflects both landlord resistance to longer tenancies and, until recently, the absence of political will to significantly update the laws governing residential leases. The result is that the sector is arguably still in a state of transition from its late 20th-century role as a largely transitional tenure for households who are en route to owner-occupation or social rented housing (Kemp, 2015). Nevertheless, the growth of private renting has given the sector a new political salience and the government has faced growing calls to improve security of tenure. Changes in residential tenancy legislation have been promised several times by Conservative governments since 2018 and seem likely to be introduced.

The nature of private landlordism has also evolved since the turn of the century, with continued decline in property companies and increasing market share by small-scale private individual owners (Crook and Kemp, 2014). In addition, the last decade has witnessed the emergence of a ‘build-to-rent’ (BTR) subsector, largely owned by large corporate landlords, which could in time partially reshape the profile of private landlordism in England.