In Orkney 9,471 people own their houses outright out of a total of 16,151 home owners. The number of people living in rented social housing is 3,268 and 1.821 are in private rentals.
More people in Scotland are owning their own house outright most likely due to the age of householders who would have bought these properties many decades ago and who now have paid off their mortgages.
The new data on Scotland’s housing ownership was revealed in the information from the census 2022. On Census Day around two thirds (63.2%) of households in Scotland owned their home (1,585,800 households). Around one third (35.4%) of households rented their home (887,600). Around one household in a hundred (1.4%) lived rent free (35,900).
The number of people renting in the private sector increased by 9.5% but the number of those in the social housing sector decreased by 2.1%.
In Orkney the number of accommodation types listed as private rentals was 1,021, compared to social housing rentals of 1,795. Orkney also had 118 homes in shared ownership (part owned and part rented) and 64 had been acquired through shared Equity (e.g. LIFT or Help-to-Buy).
Recently The Orkney News reported on the number of single person households. (11.7% of Older Orcadians live alone. ) Some of those living alone will be in properties which were once family homes. The highest percentage of households with at least 2 more bedrooms than required were in Na h-Eileanan Siar (50.6%), Aberdeenshire (45.6%), Shetland Islands (44.5%) and Orkney Islands (44.1%) . This is in complete contrast to some city areas of Scotland, for instance parts of Glasgow, where there is overcrowding in homes.
In Orkney (2019 housing statistics) record 10,631 occupied households – of which 6,396 are detached. The population of the islands was 21,838. Unsurprisingly car ownership is high:
Number of cars/vans per household in Orkney
| no cars/vans | 1,791 |
| one car/van | 4,713 |
| two cars/vans | 3,035 |
| three cars/vans | 751 |
| four + cars/vans | 338 |
Most homes in Orkney have electric central heating (3,150) and many still rely on oil to keep their homes warm (2.989). Despite being far north there were 470 homes in Orkney with no central heating at all with the latest statistics.
Other interesting figures on how we keep warm in Orkney were:
- Solid fuel (excluding wood) : 180
- Wood /biomass central heating: 73
- Other renewable energy source (including electric and air heat pump systems): 2,018
- District/communal heating system: 2
- Other central heating: 85
- Gas central heating: Mains gas: 45
- Gas central heating: Other gas (including liquid petroleum gas and biogas): 23
In Scotland as a whole there has been a significant rise in student accommodation – this matches up with the increase in those going on into further education encouraged by having no tuition fees to pay compared to rUK. On Census Day in March 2022, there were 56,000 people living in student accommodation or halls of residence. This is an increase of 22,600 people or 67.5% since 2011.
Although Scotland has an ageing demographic, the number of older people living in care homes has fallen by 14.5% , as more people choose to continue to live in their own homes many with support from social services and Third Sector organisations.
National Records of Scotland Director of Census Statistics, Jon Wroth-Smith, said:
“With the passing of time, many of today’s over 65s will have had the opportunity to pay off their mortgage. We see this in today’s figures which show that more households in Scotland are mortgage-free than a decade ago.”
For younger people, there is no significant increase in being able to own their own home and this looks likely to continue as house prices are way beyond the incomes of that age group.
Fiona Grahame