Two counts, not one
Headlines about burglary usually quote a single number, but England and Wales have two official measures, and they answer different questions. This article uses the Office for National Statistics (ONS) bulletins “Crime in England and Wales” for the years ending December 2025 and March 2026. Both bulletins are about England and Wales only, so Scotland and Northern Ireland are outside this article.
The Crime Survey for England and Wales
The Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) is described by the ONS as an interviewer-administered, face-to-face survey asking people aged 16 and over who live in households about their experiences of crime in the past year. Because it does not depend on what was reported to or recorded by the police, the ONS calls it a reliable measure of crime trends, and the best way to track long-term trends in common crimes like theft.
In the bulletin for the year ending December 2025, the survey estimated about 327,000 incidents of domestic burglary, a 22 per cent fall from about 422,000 in the year ending December 2024. The ONS said the decrease in survey theft was mainly because of falls in domestic burglary and vehicle-related theft, and that this continued a falling trend observed over the last 30 years. These are survey estimates, not a count of individual recorded crimes. The survey also excludes crimes against commercial or public sector bodies, tourists, and people living in communal establishments such as care homes and student halls.
Police recorded crime
Police recorded crime counts a set of offences that have been reported to and recorded by the police. In the year ending December 2025, police recorded burglary, which the ONS says includes both residential and non-residential burglaries, fell 12 per cent to 224,518 offences. In the later bulletin covering the year ending March 2026 it fell by 9 per cent to 223,456 offences. Because those totals include burglaries of businesses and other non-residential buildings, they are not a count of home burglaries.
The ONS is cautious about police figures in general. It says police data can show trends in specific offences that are well reported and well recorded, such as residential burglary, but it also warns that changes in recording practices have affected the reliability of the figures, particularly for violent crime, making them better indicators of police activity than crime trends.
What the March 2026 bulletin adds
The year ending March 2026 bulletin, published on 23 July 2026, says the survey estimated 2.6 million theft incidents, with no statistically significant change on the previous year, but 29 per cent lower than the year ending March 2016 and 77 per cent lower than the peak in the year ending December 1995. Within survey theft, incidents of other household theft increased by 21 per cent, to around 791,000, because of increases in theft from outside a dwelling.
For homeowners, that detail matters more than the burglary total. Theft from outside a dwelling is a different risk from someone breaking in, and it is the part of household theft that rose. The bulletin text I reviewed did not restate a separate domestic burglary estimate for the year ending March 2026, so the December 2025 figure above is the latest one quoted here.
How to use these numbers
First, do not add the survey and police figures together; they overlap and measure different things, and the police series includes non-residential burglary while the survey figure here is domestic burglary. Second, treat the survey as the better guide to long-run trends and the police series as a check on recorded, reported offences. Third, remember that national trends say little about your street; local conditions matter more to your own risk. The survey is also a sample-based estimate, so small year-to-year changes can fall within statistical uncertainty, which is why the ONS says whether a change is statistically significant, as it does for theft in the March 2026 bulletin. Police figures, for their part, depend on victims reporting a crime and on forces recording it. Finally, falling numbers do not mean the risk is zero, and the rise in theft from outside dwellings is a reminder that sheds, garden equipment and deliveries need protecting too.
The bottom line
ONS figures show a long fall in burglary in England and Wales. The survey estimated about 327,000 domestic burglaries in the year ending December 2025, down 22 per cent on the year before, while police recorded burglary of all kinds, home and non-residential together, was around 223,000 to 225,000 in the two most recent periods. The two series measure different things, one survey-based and one recorded by police, and should not be added together. Use them for context, then spend your security budget on the risks that apply to your own property, including sheds, gardens and deliveries.