Coventry has the fifth highest rate of households living in temporary accommodation among English cities, according to new analysis of government data.
Emergency accommodation service Jigsaw Conferences examined government figures for 40 English cities to compare rates of households in temporary accommodation, and to identify where the largest year on year changes have occurred.
The analysis found Coventry recorded a rate of 7.91 households in temporary accommodation per 1,000 households in 2025, placing the city fifth in the country. This was despite a 7.2% year on year decrease, with the number of households in temporary accommodation in Coventry falling from 1,244 in 2024 to 1,155 in 2025.
Coventry ranked behind Birmingham, which recorded a rate of 11.80 per 1,000 households, but ahead of other West Midlands cities including Wolverhampton, at 2.36 per 1,000, and Worcester, at 1.19 per 1,000.
Coventry was one of only two cities in the top 10 where rates fell year on year, meaning 0.79% of all households in the city were in temporary accommodation in 2025, down slightly from 0.79% in 2024, as the total number of affected households dropped.
Nationally, London recorded the highest rate of any English city, with 21.15 households in temporary accommodation per 1,000, equivalent to around 1 in 50 households. The number of households affected in London rose 4.8% year on year, from 72,130 in 2024 to 75,600 in 2025.
Manchester recorded the second highest rate, at 12.38 per 1,000 households, a rise of 6.1% on the previous year, followed by Birmingham in third place.
Regionally, the West Midlands saw a 2.1% year on year decrease in households in temporary accommodation, from 8,650 in 2024 to 8,470 in 2025. This compares with the North West, which recorded the largest regional increase nationally, up 14.7% from 8,150 to 9,350 households, while the North East saw the largest regional decrease, down 7.6% from 1,190 to 1,100 households.
Mandy Kaur, managing director at Jigsaw Conferences, said local authorities have a legal duty to secure suitable temporary accommodation for anyone assessed as homeless or threatened with homelessness while a longer term solution is found.
She said the Renters’ Rights Act, which came into force on 1 May, abolished Section 21 “no fault” eviction notices and introduced revised grounds for possession under Section 8, meaning fewer households should in theory be assessed as homeless or at risk in future.
However, she cautioned that the full effect on temporary accommodation numbers is unlikely to be visible for some time, since Section 21 notices served before 1 May 2026 remain valid provided a landlord applies for a possession order by 31 July 2026, meaning pre reform cases will continue entering the homelessness system for some months. She added there is also a risk that tighter regulation could lead some landlords to leave the market, reducing the stock of available private tenancies and making it harder for homeless households to find a private sector move on option.
The analysis was based on data from GOV.UK’s tables on homelessness, covering local authority level figures for October to December 2025 and October to December 2024 (revised). Local authorities were filtered to include only those covering cities in England, leaving 40 cities with comparable data for both years. Figures for London used data for the entire London region rather than the City of London, to allow a fairer comparison with other cities. The data was collected on 10 July 2026.
