Price Index of Private Rents user engagement

Overview

The Price Index of Private Rents (PIPR) measures the change in price of renting residential property from private landlords. The PIPR is published as a series of price indices and levels covering the United Kingdom (UK), England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, English regions, local authorities in England and Wales, and broad rental market areas in Scotland and Northern Ireland.  

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) brought together private rental price statistics by replacing the Index of Private Housing Rental Prices (IPHRP) and the Private rental market summary statistics in England (PRMS) bulletins with a new monthly housing statistical bulletin, Private rent and house prices, UK, in March 2024. Until March 2025, PIPR methodology was used for rents in Great Britian and the IPHRP methodology continued to be used for Northern Ireland rents.  

In March 2025, Northern Ireland’s private rents were incorporated into PIPR, aligning the methodology used for private rents across the whole of UK.  

PIPR data are official statistics in development. The PIPR statistics allows us to better reflect price changes in the private rented sector and produce more robust and granular inflation statistics for the private rental market for businesses, individuals and government.  

We requested a quality-focused assessment of our PIPR by the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) in 2024. This was the first step towards achieving accredited official statistics status. The OSR published its Spotlight on quality assessment: Price Index of Private Rents (PIPR) report in October 2024, which included requirements for the ONS to address, before submitting PIPR for a full assessment of its “in development” status. 

Why your views matter

It’s vital that the data and statistics we provide best meet the needs of our users, and that we understand both how you use our data, and how well it meets your needs. We would like to hear from you to understand how you use the PIPR. Your feedback will inform our future publication strategy and, in particular, identify where there are any improved explanations, or additional analysis could be provided to better meet your user needs.  

The ONS developed the PIPR to overcome known limitations of its previous private rental sector statistics, which were unable to provide estimates of private rent levels and change that were both comparable over time and available at low levels of geography. These limitations were previously identified in the UK Statistics Authority’s Systemic review on housing and planning statistics in 2017. As a result, PIPR has now replaced ONS’s Index of Private Housing Rental Prices (IPHRP) and Private Rental Market Statistics (PRMS).  

The PIPR now provides users with a consistent monthly measure of inflation and rent prices levels that are comparable over time, unlike PRMS, and publishes at increased geographic granularity than IPHRP. The PIPR is published monthly covering the UK, England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, English regions, local authorities in England and Wales, and broad rental market areas in Scotland and Northern Ireland. These data are further disaggregated by property type and bedroom category. All data presented are non-seasonally adjusted.  

How to respond    

To contribute, please complete the online or the Word document questionnaire at the bottom of the page.  

We welcome contributions from all users of ONS’s Price Index of Private Rents (PIPR). This includes but is not limited to: 

• academics and researchers 

• arm's-length or public sector organisations 

• business, financial or industrial institutions  

• charity and civil society organisations 

• community or voluntary groups 

• interested member of the public 

• international organisations 

• local authorities and health boards

• schools and higher and further education institutions 

• social enterprises 

• think tanks 

• UK and devolved government departments 

Accessibility   

If you prefer to view the questionnaire and submit your contribution in a Word document format, please download the Word document at the bottom of this page. Complete and return by email to hpi@ons.gov.uk. If you prefer a different format, or you would like to discuss your feedback with us, please email hpi@ons.gov.uk.    

Confidentiality and data protection   

We aim to be as open as possible in our decision-making process. As part of this, we plan to publish an anonymised summary of the responses we receive. We will not publish the personal name of any respondent. Names of individuals, organisations and groups will not be linked to any comments that you give.