Household Debt: Key Economic Indicators

Household debt: Data on the latest household debt statistics, including net lending, mortgage interest rates and insolvencies.

This document focusses on standard official sources. For more timely data on the economy, see the Library briefing Coronavirus: Latest economic data.

Household debt as a % of disposable income

Household debt peaked in Q2 2008 at 147% of household disposable income. It then declined to 124% by late 2015.

Growth in household debt levels accelerated from early 2016, so that the debt-to-income ratio rose again to 128% by mid-2017. In Q1 2020 it was 127.1%.

Statistical note: The household debt and income source data were changed in May 2019. Previously debt and income totals included the non-profit sector (mostly charities and universities). The new data reflects only individuals in the household sector. The overall historical trends are unchanged. For more see Box 1 in the Library paper on household debt.

Current average mortgage interest rates

The average Standard Variable Rate (SVR) was 3.66% in June 2020, down 0.63% points on a year ago.

The average 2-year fixed mortgage rate was 1.41% in June 2020, down 0.23% points on the year.

Individual insolvencies, England and Wales

There were 27,849 individual insolvencies in England and Wales in Q1 2020, slightly down on the previous quarter. This is the sixth successive quarterly fall in the number of insolvencies.

The Q1 2020 level is 11.2% down on the level in Q1 2019, which saw the second highest number of insolvencies since Q1 2010, after Q4 2018.

In Scotland, there were 3,156 individual insolvencies in Q1 2020, slightly lower than a year before.

In Northern Ireland, there were 621 individual insolvencies in Q1 2020, up 7% on the year.