Housebuilding in Scotland has fallen, with the number of new homes completed dropping to its lowest level in 11 years.
New Scottish Government figures show 17,057 homes were completed in the 12 months to the end of June 2026, amounting to 2,123 fewer than during the previous year and a fall of 11 per cent.
Construction started on 15,543 homes during the same period, down 272 or two per cent. Completions were at their lowest level for a year ending in June since 2015, while starts were at their lowest since 2013.
The Scottish Government was using the 12 months from July 2024 to June 2025 as the baseline for its ambition to increase housebuilding by 10 per cent a year for three years.
Instead of increasing during the first year measured against that baseline, the number of homes completed fell by 11 per cent.
There are geographical differences in where new homes are being built.
The latest complete financial-year breakdown for Scotland’s 32 council areas shows Edinburgh remained the country’s biggest location for new construction in 2025-26.
Work started on 1,850 homes in the City of Edinburgh Council area during the year, equivalent to 12.4 per cent of all new homes started in Scotland.
Glasgow recorded 831 starts, around 5.6 per cent of the Scottish total.
Edinburgh, Fife, Midlothian, East Lothian and West Lothian together recorded 5,769 starts in 2025-26, accounting for 38.6 per cent of all new homes started in Scotland.
That compares with 6,324 across the same five council areas in 2024-25 – a fall of 555 homes, or almost nine per cent.
Despite that decline, more than one in three homes starting construction in Scotland remain concentrated in Edinburgh and its surrounding council areas.
Glasgow has moved in the opposite direction. Analysis of the 2024-25 figures put the city at 440 new-build starts, compared with 831 during 2025-26.
20 years ago, Glasgow’s housebuilding levels in 2006-07 showed 5,531 homes started construction in the city, accounting for 19.1 per cent of the Scottish total.
The official 2025-26 figures show Na h-Eileanan Siar, Midlothian, West Lothian and East Lothian had the highest rates of new-build completions, with each recording more than 60 completed homes for every 10,000 residents.
East Lothian and Midlothian have consistently appeared among the ten council areas with the highest housebuilding rates during the past decade.
At the opposite end of the scale, Inverclyde, South Ayrshire, Dumfries and Galloway, Shetland, East Renfrewshire, Argyll and Bute and the Scottish Borders each recorded 20 or fewer new-build completions for every 10,000 people in 2025-26.
Private developers remain responsible for most new homes constructed in Scotland. During 2025-26, the private sector completed 13,494 homes and began work on 11,018.
Private completions were down eight per cent on the previous financial year, while starts fell almost 12 per cent.
Councils and housing associations completed 3,774 homes in 2025-26, down 16 per cent, but started 3,937 – an increase of 25 per cent on the previous year.
Across all sectors, Scotland completed 17,268 new homes during the 2025-26 financial year and started 14,955, falls of 10 per cent and four per cent respectively.
The figures published on 29 September show that the downward trend continued into the following quarter.
With completions now at their lowest level for an equivalent 12-month period since 2015, Scotland begins the next stage of its housebuilding programme considerably below the level required by the government’s stated ambition to increase housing supply.