EDI data tool

EDI data tool: comparing your workforce to your local community

Social housing is rooted in addressing injustice and inequalities for diverse communities of people. Our ambition is to drive progress towards a culture of inclusivity, embedding equality across our sector and diversity in leadership roles. This will support business decisions that benefit our workforces and residents, building greater trust.

So that we can take the right steps towards greater representation in our sector, we need to know where we currently are. Accurate data is a vital starting point. That’s why we developed our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) data tool.

Our EDI data tool enables housing associations to see how representative your workforce is of the communities you serve and how representative leadership is of staff. It is intended as a starting point for conversations about workforce diversity which can be explored through further analysis of data and used to shape action plans and strategies to improve equality, diversity and inclusion in your organisation.

What do we know so far?

Our 2023 EDI data collection exercise provided an updated picture and recommendations for driving change, published in our report. We found:

• Three key areas of underrepresentation – female leaders, ethnic diversity at leadership level and disability across the workforce.
• Staff are reluctant to disclose their religion, sexual orientation, marital status, and gender identity.
• Big gaps remain around data on socioeconomic background and caring responsibilities. We are missing over 90% of data on these characteristics for the housing association workforce.

The NHF and Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH) published our action plan to tackle poor quality in housing in response to the Better Social Housing Review, and the EDI data tool was cited throughout as one of the ways to tackle structural inequalities.

It’s important that, as a sector, we review our processes for collecting and storing EDI data. Ahead of our 2026 EDI data tool, we encourage our members to engage staff – building trust and confidence in submitting diversity data.

Why should you use our EDI data tool?

Housing associations represent diverse communities and reflecting this diversity in our leadership helps build trust with those communities and improve service delivery. 

We know from our 2020 insight review that “the starting point (for change) is data. We need to know where we are in order to know where we want to be and measure our progress”. The EDI tool has helped hundreds of housing associations to better understand their workforce diversity, and how representative they are of their local communities. This has enabled them to target change and work towards creating the most inclusive and diverse workforce possible.

By better understanding the diverse characteristics of the population in stock location and how our workforces compare to them, housing associations are forming a solid foundation for ensuring our leadership is diverse, and that our workplaces embrace equality.

Why should you contribute your EDI data to our sector-wide report?

Contributing your organisation's data to our sector-wide report will signal to staff, prospective employees and the communities you serve that you are committed to EDI and ensuring their diverse views are represented in your workforce and leadership teams.

A workforce that is diverse will have improved performance and productivity, because people trust leaders where they and the communities they serve feel represented.

By submitting your data, you can help us understand how the national picture is shifting over time, and give us insight into how we can continue to address the racial and structural inequalities highlighted in the Better Social Housing Review.

We need to initiate the right conversations, set targets, create action plans, and monitor our progress over time.  But we need to know where we are, to know where we want to be. 

Using the tool and returning your data is the simplest way to begin work towards creating a more diverse and inclusive sector. 

How does the EDI data tool work?

If you’re a member of the National Housing Federation (NHF), all you need to do is log in to our website and download the EDI data tool below. Anyone working for an organisation that is an NHF member can register and login using their work email and our system will automatically grant access.

From there, the following will happen:

• You’ll identify the housing association you work for from a drop-down menu.
• Our spreadsheet will automatically show your owned stock by local authority and summarise the diverse characteristics of people living in those stock locations. This is based on existing national datasets , primarily Census 2021.
• You can then submit your organisation’s diversity data. This will compare your workforce to the communities they serve based on all nine protected characteristics, as well as caring responsibilities and socio-economic characteristics.
• There is also an opportunity to compare the diversity of your executives and boards to staff members – and how these groups compare to residents in your stock locations. This reveals how representative your leadership team is to your workforce, and to residents, highlighting areas of underrepresentation at all levels.

If you’re collecting your organisation’s diversity data and need more information about your staff, please see our suggested questions. We have explained why it is important you ask these questions, and how you can use the data collected from them to improve diversity and inclusion in your organisation.

You will find more instructions on how to complete the EDI data tool within the tool itself.

What updates have we made for the 2026 EDI data tool?

The 2026 EDI Data Tool retains a similar structure and looks to the previous version. However, we have made some improvements to the usability and functionality of the tool, based on feedback from members. This includes listing the questions vertically in one column, rather than across three columns and an option to tell us that you don’t collect data on a specific characteristic. We have also added charts and tables to visualise your data and make it easier to share the results within your own reporting processes.  

For the majority of questions within the updated tool, we used Census 2021 data to tell us the characteristics of the population by stock location. The Census provides a picture of all people and households in England and Wales and using this data ensures the tool is as accurate and up to date as possible. Please see the Notes tab on the EDI data tool for further information about the data sources used for comparison with population by stock location.  

We adapted the wording of some questions to be in line with the latest census results and to ensure we’re asking them in a way that generates the best answers from respondents. To help members prepare for the new questions in the 2026 tool, we published our updated suggested questions to ask your workforce and resource explaining why we suggest these questions and how the data could be used to achieve greater equality, diversity and inclusion. We developed this document alongside our EDI member steering group and with advice from EDI consultants and legal advisors.   

We are continuously looking at the language we use, to make the tool is as inclusive as possible, whilst also enabling us to benchmark against existing data about the characteristics of the wider population.  

We welcome any feedback about how we could improve future tool iterations, please get in touch.