Integrated Household Survey

The Integrated Household Survey (IHS) is the largest social survey collected by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), providing estimates from approximately 325,000 individual respondents − the biggest pool of UK social data after the census.

The Integrated Household Survey (IHS) was previously formed from "core" questions asked by a number of our household surveys. Currently the IHS is based solely upon the Annual Population Survey (APS), following the removal of IHS questions on the Living Costs and Food (LCF) survey in January 2014.Topics covered by the IHS include sexual identity, perceived general health, smoking prevalence, education, housing and employment.

At present, IHS statistics are designated as experimental¹.

Notes

1. Experimental statistics are those which are in the testing phase, are not yet fully developed and have not been submitted for assessment to the UK Statistics Authority. They are published in order to involve customers and stakeholders in their development and as a means to build in quality at an early stage.

The IHS releases data on an annual basis.

All IHS Statistical Bulletins can be found on the ONS website.

You can access the IHS datasets via the UK Data Archive.

To arrange access to the IHS data, please contact access2data@ons.gov.uk.

We have published a set of user guides which can be used when analysing data from the IHS. The latest versions of the user guide:

• IHS User Guide 2014 (817 Kb Word document)

We have produced a Quality and Methodology Information report for the IHS.

We consulted users on 2 proposals on the IHS:

• Proposal to rotate the Sexual Identity questions on the IHS (removal from the IHS in 2014, and reinstated in 2015)

This consultation ran from 13 September 2013 to 11 October 2013.

• Stop Integrated Household Survey core questions in the Living Costs and Food Survey

This consultation ran from 2 September 2013 to 31 October 2013.

We have also consulted IHS users regarding the frequency of IHS data releases:

• Proposal to reduce the number of datasets produced using the Integrated Household Survey

This consultation ran from 1 August 2012 until 30 October 2012.

• IHS User Guide Volume 1: Background and Methodology 2012 (176.8 Kb Pdf)

• IHS User Guide Volume 2: 2012 Questionnaire (263.2 Kb Pdf)

• IHS User Guide Volume 3: Details of IHS variables 2012 (828.8 Kb Pdf)

• IHS User Guide Volume 4: IHS Derived Variables 2012 (1.29 Mb Pdf)

• Quality and Methodology Information for Integrated Household Survey (264.8 Kb Pdf)

• IHS User Guide 2014 (836.6 Kb Word document)