Scotland has more single person households in UK

Scotland has a higher rate of people living alone than any other part of the UK, new statistics show.

Data from the National Records of Scotland (NRS) showed there were 2.54 million households last year – 14% more than 20 years ago.

It said more than one in three (37%) of households were one person living alone – 930,000 people in total.

The latest data for the rest of the UK shows 30% of households in England were single person, 32% in Wales, and 31% in Northern Ireland.

NRS said the rising number of single person households was due to an ageing population, as older people were more likely to live alone.

Over the past 20 years, the number of households has increased in every council area of Scotland, with the largest percentage increases in East Lothian (28%), Midlothian (27%) and the Orkney Islands (26%).

The average number of people in each household has gone down from 2.27 in 2001 to 2.12 in 2022.

Of the 2.72 million dwellings in Scotland in 2023, 92,500 were vacant and 24,000 were second homes.

More remote and rural areas had the highest number of dwellings that were second homes or vacant.

Sandy Taylor, head of household statistics at NRS, said: “These statistics show a continuation of the trends of rising numbers of households and more single-person households.”