Housing-led population projections
Update 21 August 2026 - the 2024-based projections are now available
Accompanying documentation and the update to the projections explorer tool have been delayed by a technical issue and will be added in the coming days.
Three 'core' variants of the housing-led projections have been produced - central, high, low. These are intended to cover a reasonable range of possible outcomes and be suitable for use in common planning and policy activities. Additional variants covering a wider range of scenarios will be published in the upcoming release of detailed outputs, intended for use in analysis and other modelling activities.
The three core variants differ in their fertility, mortality, and migration assumptions used, but all use the same housing assumptions for areas within London, derived from the 2026 London SHLAA.
The outputs are available on both 2022 electoral wards, and 2021 Middle-layer Super Output Areas (MSOA) (local authority and region outputs are included with both versions).
Unless the application explicitly requires data for wards, we recommend the MSOA version of the projections for most users. Ward boundaries are no longer consistent with those of statistical geographies, requiring additional steps to fit input data for use in the models, which degrades the accuracy of the data. We have included the MSOA names published by the House of Commons Library in the MSOA outputs to make them more relatable to users.
Though both versions of the projections are based on the same methods and assumptions, the results for wards and MSOAs are not consistent with one another because of the modifiable areal unit problem.
The Excel version of the outputs include:
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population by single year of age and sex for each area within the model from 2011 to 2051
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summary annual components of change
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assumed total fertility rates and life expectancy at birth
Data is only included for areas within London, though the detailed outputs will also include data for surrounding areas. Including outputs for areas outside of London is primarily to provide transparency about the production of the figures for London.
Note: The projections were produced without reference to current or future plans or assessments of housing capacity in areas outside of London and the results and assumptions in no way represent a view of likely future housing delivery in those areas.
The Interim 2024-based housing-led projections, published as part of the evidence base for the draft London Plan have been superseded, but will remain available.
The housing-led projections reconcile future population growth with available housing supply by incorporating a housing supply trajectory. The housing-led projections are recommended for most local planning purposes, and the 10-year variant can be considered the default variant.
Users in London local authorities are able to request bespoke projections based on alternative housing scenarios through the GLA Population Projection Service. Projections provided through the service earlier in the year will be udpated in the coming weeks to reflect the latest housing and population data.
2022-based 10-year migration Central Fertility Identified Capacity (54.77 MB)2022-based housing-led population projections for London boroughs and electoral wards (2022 boundaries).
Projection based on:
10-year period of local migration flows with ward results constrained to match the results of the GLA 10-year trend-based projection for ITL2 subregions.
Central fertility scenario
Identified Capacity housing delivery scenario derived from the 2017 Strategic Housing Land Availability Assessment
- 2022-based 15-year migration High Fertility Identified Capacity (54.78 MB)
2022-based housing-led population projections for London boroughs and electoral wards (2022 boundaries).
Projection based on:
11-year period of local migration flows with ward results constrained to match the results of the GLA 15-year trend-based projection for ITL2 subregions.
High fertility scenario
Identified Capacity housing delivery scenario derived from the 2017 Strategic Housing Land Availability Assessment
- 2022-based 5-year migration Low Fertility Identified Capacity (54.76 MB)
2022-based housing-led population projections for London boroughs and electoral wards (2022 boundaries).
Projection based on:
5-year period of local migration flows with ward results constrained to match the results of the GLA 5-year trend-based projection for ITL2 subregions.
Low fertility scenario
Identified Capacity housing delivery scenario derived from the 2017 Strategic Housing Land Availability Assessment
- 2021-based Housing Targets 10-year migration (64.25 MB)
2021-based Interim GLA housing-led population projections for London boroughs and wards (2022 boundaries). 10-year migration trend constrained at the NUTS2 level to the GLA 10-year trend projection. Housing Targets housing development scenario.
- 2021-based Identified Capacity 10-year migration. Borough and ward projection. (64.22 MB)
2021-based Interim GLA housing-led population projections for London boroughs and wards (2022 boundaries). 10-year migration trend constrained at the NUTS2 level to the GLA 10-year trend projection. Identified Capacity housing development scenario.
