Work Signals research guide
House Price Index for Local Property Research
A council-level house-price series can help describe the market around a project. It cannot tell you what a particular site is worth or what its owner plans to spend.
Council-level context across the UK
The July 2026 UK HPI release provides series for 381 current councils in our inventory, across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. The Isles of Scilly has no council-level series in that source release. Official GSS authority codes identify the correct area rather than a fuzzy council-name match.
Use the official UK HPI reports to review the source methodology and release information. Publication and reference months differ, so always read the month represented by the series.
Useful questions for area research
- What month does the latest available series describe?
- Does the authority code match the council around the planning site?
- How does the area series change over the period being researched?
- Is the comparison between equivalent geographies and dates?
For a business planning where to focus research, an area series can be part of the background alongside collected proposal types and actual source coverage. It should not be used to infer a named household’s budget, the profitability of an extension or an expected contract value.
Keep HPI separate from an individual sale
A recorded transaction belongs to a particular property at a particular date. An HPI series describes an area-level measure. The two answer different questions and should not be combined into a supposed current price for an application site.
Read the sale-history guide when a project has a reliable transaction match. For Scottish or Northern Ireland projects, HPI does not fill the missing individual-sales source access.
Authority boundaries and source dates
Council reorganisations can change names and geographic responsibilities. Exact authority codes reduce name confusion, but a historical comparison still needs the geography described by the source. Do not treat a county, district and city-region label as interchangeable.
Use market context alongside verified project facts
Start with the original planning proposal, check dates and identity, and then add market context if it helps your research question. Our property evidence guide explains the wider source distinctions; the live inventory records current availability.