Highland Estimates It Needs 31,848 Homes Over 20 Years

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4 November 2026

Highland Council says its latest assessment identifies a requirement for 31,848 additional homes over the next 20 years, a scale of demand that extends far beyond its present programme for affordable housing.

The figure was published on 4 November alongside the council’s Strategic Housing Investment Plan for 2027–2032 and its Local Housing Strategy. It covers housing needs across different tenures, rather than a promise to construct 31,848 council homes or a calculation of people already on a waiting list. Scottish Government guidance requires housing need and demand assessments to consider future requirements for social rent, below-market rent, private rent and home ownership.

Highland’s investment plan continues to programme for at least 700 affordable homes a year, subject to funding. The council and housing association partners say they have delivered more than 1,800 affordable homes during the past four years, with 72% outside Inverness. The reported delivery also includes 127 homes in remote communities, 837 new council homes and 897 homes delivered by housing associations. These figures describe overlapping measures of activity and should not all be added together.

The latest assessment also examines how housing affects employment and daily life. Among employers surveyed, 65% identified shortages as an obstacle to recruiting or retaining staff. Among households responding to the assessment, 29% said they expected or wanted to move within two years; 20% of households with a health condition reported that their home did not meet accessibility needs; and 10% considered themselves overcrowded. Survey findings do not automatically mean identical proportions across every Highland community.

Housing pressure is particularly consequential in an area where settlements are widely dispersed and development costs, transport, employment and public services vary considerably. Building where workers need homes, and ensuring those homes are affordable relative to local earnings, is a different challenge from meeting a region-wide numerical target.

The council is also examining the potential of a Highland Growth Deal. It has begun formal engagement with the Scottish and UK governments on an investment proposition estimated at £10 billion to £16 billion over 25 years, but that is not money already secured or allocated to housing. The council also intends to bring empty properties back into use and improve the energy efficiency and accessibility of existing homes.

The immediate measure of progress will be the number, tenure, location and affordability of homes actually delivered against the investment plan. The housing assessment identifies the scale of the problem; its findings do not, by themselves, resolve the financing, land, infrastructure and workforce constraints involved in meeting it.