Sharing a house with total strangers used to be a rite of passage you’d expect to leave behind by your 30th birthday, but the reality of the UK housing market has changed that.
The number of people over 65 living in shared accommodation has nearly tripled over the last 10 years, and it’s not just down to a lack of affordable flats. While the cost of living and stagnant pensions are forcing many to rethink their living arrangements, there’s also a growing transition towards intentional sharing as a way to bin the isolation that often comes with later life.
It’s a mix of financial necessity and a desire for a bit of company, turning the traditional retirement model on its head as more people trade total independence for a spare room and a shared kitchen.
The numbers tell a stark story.
SpareRoom, one of the UK’s largest flatsharing platforms, reported that users aged over 55 made up 2.7% of its membership a decade ago, and that figure has now risen to 7.1%. That’s close to a tripling in just ten years. And it’s not expected to slow down any time soon. The English Housing Survey shows that while 6% of over-65s are currently in shared living situations, the Pensions Policy Institute forecasts this will rise to 17% by 2040.
The pension system wasn’t designed for renters.
A fundamental problem sits at the heart of all of this. The UK pension system is based on the assumption that people reach retirement without housing costs. That assumption has quietly become one of the most damaging fictions in British financial planning. Millions of people who spent their working lives renting are arriving at retirement age with that cost still very much intact, and the state pension was never calibrated to absorb it.
It’s mostly about money.
The reasons older people are turning to house shares are not complicated. Research from Cohabitas, a platform aimed at older sharers, found that 75% of people cited financial reasons as the primary driver, while 25% mentioned social factors. For the majority, it isn’t a lifestyle choice. It’s arithmetic. Rents in most parts of the country have risen faster than pension income, and the sums simply no longer work for people living alone.
Social housing can no longer take the strain.
For decades, older renters who couldn’t afford the private market had somewhere to turn. However, a major shortage of social housing now means many older people simply don’t have that option, according to campaigners at Independent Age. The proportion of privately rented homes headed by someone aged 55 to 64 increased from 6.3% in 2010/11 to 11.3% in 2020/21. Those people have been pushed into a market that was never built around their needs.
The housing shortage shows no sign of easing.
The backdrop to all of this is a housing supply crisis that isn’t resolving itself. The Labour government has acknowledged it will not reach its target of 1.5 million new homes, meaning housing shortages are likely to continue into the next parliament. Without meaningful increases in supply, the pressure on older renters is only going to intensify. More people competing for fewer affordable homes means the financial squeeze continues, and house shares become less of a last resort and more of an inevitability.
The private rental market was never built for older people.
Behind the numbers are older renters reporting rising housing costs, low pension income, and a market that many experts say was never designed for people seeking shared accommodation later in life. Most flatshares are geared towards younger tenants. The locations, the setups, the expectations of communal living, none of it was conceived with a 68-year-old in mind. Older people are trying to navigate a system that at no point considered them as participants.
Winter fuel payment cuts have made things harder.
The financial picture for pensioners worsened recently when the government changed the rules around winter fuel payments. From winter 2024/25, only pensioners receiving Pension Credit or certain other means-tested benefits are entitled to the payment, which is worth £200 or £300 per household depending on age. For pensioners living in rented accommodation, where heating older and often poorly insulated properties is expensive, losing that payment has pushed already stretched budgets closer to the edge.
Divorce and life changes are a significant factor.
It isn’t only lifelong renters who find themselves in this situation. Rising divorce rates, poorer pension returns and growing life expectancy have all been cited as factors contributing to fewer older people owning their own homes. People who expected to own a property by now, and who perhaps did at some point, have found themselves back in the rental market following separation, bereavement, or financial difficulties later in life. A house share becomes the practical answer to a situation they never planned for.
The emotional cost is rarely discussed.
The financial impact is obvious, but there’s a human cost that sits alongside it that doesn’t get as much attention. Older residents have reported feeling like guests in someone else’s home, with one 68-year-old renter from Earlsfield describing losing a sense of self after being priced out of the area she’d lived in for 40 years. The loss of a private, settled home affects people’s sense of identity and stability in ways that go well beyond practical inconvenience.
Ageism is a real problem within flatshares.
Sharing with people decades younger brings its own difficulties. Some older residents have reported younger flatmates making comments about their age, with one woman describing feeling so uncomfortable that she kept her bedroom door closed constantly, something she’d never done before. The age gap can create friction that neither party is particularly equipped to navigate. Older tenants can end up feeling marginalised in their own home, which only adds to the difficulty of an already hard situation.
Some people are turning the situation around.
Not everyone in this situation experiences it as purely negative. Around 25% of older house sharers cite social reasons alongside the financial ones. For people who live alone and who might otherwise see very few people from one week to the next, shared living can provide company and a sense of connection. Some platforms specifically designed for older house sharers have tried to match people based on lifestyle and compatibility, which makes a real difference to how the arrangement works in practice.
Homeowners are increasingly renting out rooms too.
The trend isn’t only moving in one direction. More older homeowners are renting out spare rooms as a way to cope with the rising cost of living, further reshaping who flatsharing is for in modern Britain. For someone sitting in a house that’s become expensive to heat and maintain on a fixed income, taking in a lodger makes financial sense. In some cases it also addresses loneliness. The house share dynamic is changing in both directions simultaneously.
Accessibility is a growing concern nobody is properly addressing.
Shared housing and the needs of older people don’t always sit comfortably together. Age UK reports that 44% of people over 50 worry about accessibility in their housing. Standard flatshares aren’t designed with mobility, bathroom safety, or accessibility requirements in mind. As people age, those issues become more pressing, and the pool of suitable shared properties shrinks further. It’s a problem that will only grow as more older people find themselves needing to share.
Poverty among older renters is rising.
The connection between renting and pensioner poverty is not incidental. Poverty rates are higher for pensioners who rent, whether privately or in social housing, than for those who own their homes outright or with a mortgage. Research suggests that someone who owns outright could expect to maintain their living standards on a pension pot of £260,000, while someone renting privately would need almost double that at £445,000. The gap is enormous, and most people in their twenties and thirties who are currently renting are not saving anywhere near enough to bridge it.
The trend is going to get much worse before it gets better.
The rise in older private renting is very likely to continue, partly due to a lack of savings among many middle-aged renting households. In 2016/17, 755,000 of middle-aged renting households had no savings at all. The people who are currently in their forties and fifties, renting, and saving little, are the next wave heading towards retirement without the financial buffer that owner-occupation provides. Unless housing policy changes significantly, the number of pensioners in house shares isn’t going to plateau. It’s going to keep climbing.
