White people are 36% more likely to receive a positive response when applying to rent on SpareRoom than black people

Published

2 years ago

November 8, 2023

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White people are 36% more likely to receive a positive response when applying to rent a home than black people, Sky News has learned.

Exclusive figures provided by Generation Rent show apparent racism currently in the rental market.

The campaign organisation used artificial intelligence to set up two fake profiles, a black and a white one, on the rental website SpareRoom. The only differences in their details were their names and skin colour.

Enquiries were sent out by both profiles to property adverts randomly selected across the UK, within minutes of each other, with different responses.

Analysis of more than 210 adverts found that the white facing profile was 36% more likely to receive a positive response than the black facing profile.

The white profile was also 17% more likely than the black profile to receive any response at all.

In one example the same message was sent by both profiles enquiring about a room in a townhouse.

“Hi there, I’m interested in the property, could I arrange a viewing please?” it read.

The white profile, named Lizzie, received this response: “Hi Lizzie, can you tell me a little about how long you would be looking for the room, do you work local etc. Many Thanks.”

The black profile, called Zuri, received a different message stating simply: “Hello, sorry it’s just been let.”

Paris Williams, 25, has been living in a HMO (house of multiple occupancy) in London for the past two years and describes racism as a barrier to finding somewhere better to rent.

“I’ve had my passport inspected,” she says, “(they asked) ‘is it really a British passport? You can’t be British’, but why can’t I be British?

“And then when you’re going house searching [they] ask ‘do you smoke weed? Because I have black tenants who smoke weed’.

“So you’re stuck. You know that you’ve got bad conditions here but you can’t move.”

Paris says the situation she is living in is “hell”.

The policy adviser sleeps with an alarm under her room door because she feels unsafe as the front door to the HMO is often left open by other tenants.

She has previously found a stranger in her hallway and once discovered an unknown man taking a shower in her shared bathroom.

“He was clearly visibly homeless,” she says. “He was wet, he didn’t use a towel, he had no socks on. [He said] ‘well your door was open so i just thought I could’.”

In the last two years she has applied for multiple rentals, even changing her clothes, “stripping back” her makeup, and tying her hair back for viewings.

She says she can afford to rent somewhere better because the feeling of being unsafe in her own home is “gut wrenching”.

“I describe it as fight or flight, you’re never really calm, you’re tense, you’re always waiting for something to happen.

“Every little noise – is that something? is it not?”

Read more from Sky News:
Average rents in Britain hiked 10% over a year

‘Wild west hostile marketplace’

Tilly Smith, campaigns and partnerships officer from Generation Rent, helped carry out the AI profile research after suspecting discrimination in the rental market.

She describes the knock-on effect it is having, in a broader sense, on ethnic minority groups looking for somewhere to live.

“They’ve been forced into this sort of wild west hostile marketplace where they may or may not be able to find a property,” she said.

“So people become very placid and they feel they have to put up with poor quality housing with poor standards, with mould-ridden properties, with disrepair.

“There is the devastating issue of stress and worry of finding somewhere to live.

“There is also the more long-term enduring issue of people who are black, Asian, or minority ethnic who feel they have to put up with terrible conditions.”

In a statement SpareRoom said their “discrimination policy states nobody can discriminate against or reject someone due to their race.

“We look into every single report of discrimination we receive and investigate thoroughly – if we find that racial discrimination has occurred we’ll remove the user permanently.”

While racism in renting is not a new issue it is believed that it may be getting worse due to the low supply of private rentals available verses demand.

‘The current crisis will carry on’

Jabeer Butt OBE, chief executive of the Race Equality Foundation, says competition for “a smaller and smaller resource” may be making things worse.

“You can imagine racism is going to be at the forefront of that sort of thing,” he said.

“But then the reality also is that we know what the solutions are, we know what we can do to make it better.

“We know a significant programme of building social housing will change the whole dynamic of the housing crisis that we face…we’re not even managing to build affordable housing to the scale that we’re meant to be doing.

“And until we do that, the current crisis will carry on or potentially get worse.”

Business

UK economy figures not as bad as they look despite GDP fall, analysts say

Published

21 hours ago

July 11, 2025

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UK economy figures not as bad as they look despite GDP fall, analysts say

The UK economy unexpectedly shrank in May, even after the worst of Donald Trump’s tariffs were paused, official figures showed.

A standard measure of economic growth, gross domestic product (GDP), contracted 0.1% in May, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

Rather than a fall being anticipated, growth of 0.1% was forecast by economists polled by Reuters as big falls in production and construction were seen.

It followed a 0.3% contraction in April, when Mr Trump announced his country-specific tariffs and sparked a global trade war.

A 90-day pause on these import taxes, which has been extended, allowed more normality to resume.

This was borne out by other figures released by the ONS on Friday.

Exports to the United States rose £300m but “remained relatively low” following a “substantial decrease” in April, the data said.

Overall, there was a “large rise in goods imports and a fall in goods exports”.

A ‘disappointing’ but mixed picture

It’s “disappointing” news, Chancellor Rachel Reeves said. She and the government as a whole have repeatedly said growing the economy was their number one priority.

“I am determined to kickstart economic growth and deliver on that promise”, she added.

But the picture was not all bad.

Growth recorded in March was revised upwards, further indicating that companies invested to prepare for tariffs. Rather than GDP of 0.2%, the ONS said on Friday the figure was actually 0.4%.

It showed businesses moved forward activity to be ready for the extra taxes. Businesses were hit with higher employer national insurance contributions in April.

The expansion in March means the economy still grew when the three months are looked at together.

While an interest rate cut in August had already been expected, investors upped their bets of a 0.25 percentage point fall in the Bank of England’s base interest rate.

Such a cut would bring down the rate to 4% and make borrowing cheaper.

Analysts from economic research firm Pantheon Macro said the data was not as bad as it looked.

“The size of the manufacturing drop looks erratic to us and should partly unwind… There are signs that GDP growth can rebound in June”, said Pantheon’s chief UK economist, Rob Wood.

Why did the economy shrink?

The drops in manufacturing came mostly due to slowed car-making, less oil and gas extraction and the pharmaceutical industry.

The fall was not larger because the services industry – the largest part of the economy – expanded, with law firms and computer programmers having a good month.

It made up for a “very weak” month for retailers, the ONS said.

Business

UK economy remains fragile – and there are risks and traps lurking around the corner

Published

21 hours ago

July 11, 2025

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UK economy remains fragile - and there are risks and traps lurking around the corner

Monthly Gross Domestic Product (GDP) figures are volatile and, on their own, don’t tell us much.

However, the picture emerging a year since the election of the Labour government is not hugely comforting.

This is a government that promised to turbocharge economic growth, the key to improving livelihoods and the public finances. Instead, the economy is mainly flatlining.

Output shrank in May by 0.1%. That followed a 0.3% drop in April.

Ministers were celebrating a few months ago as data showed the economy grew by 0.7% in the first quarter.

Hangover from artificial growth

However, the subsequent data has shown us that much of that growth was artificial, with businesses racing to get orders out of the door to beat the possible introduction of tariffs. Property transactions were also brought forward to beat stamp duty changes.

In April, we experienced the hangover as orders and industrial output dropped. Services also struggled as demand for legal and conveyancing services dropped after the stamp duty changes.

Many of those distortions have now been smoothed out, but the manufacturing sector still struggled in May.

Signs of recovery

Manufacturing output fell by 1% in May, but more up-to-date data suggests the sector is recovering.

“We expect both cars and pharma output to improve as the UK-US trade deal comes into force and the volatility unwinds,” economists at Pantheon Macroeconomics said.

Meanwhile, the services sector eked out growth of 0.1%.

A 2.7% month-to-month fall in retail sales suppressed growth in the sector, but that should improve with hot weather likely to boost demand at restaurants and pubs.

Struggles ahead

It is unlikely, however, to massively shift the dial for the economy, the kind of shift the Labour government has promised and needs in order to give it some breathing room against its fiscal rules.

The economy remains fragile, and there are risks and traps lurking around the corner.

Concerns that the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, is considering tax hikes could weigh on consumer confidence, at a time when businesses are already scaling back hiring because of national insurance tax hikes.

Inflation is also expected to climb in the second half of the year, further weighing on consumers and businesses.

Business

Government to announce new scheme as it ramps up AI adoption with backing from Facebook owner Meta

Published

1 day ago

July 11, 2025

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Government to announce new scheme as it ramps up AI adoption with backing from Facebook owner Meta

The government is speeding up its adoption of AI to try and encourage economic growth – with backing from Facebook parent Meta.

It will today announce a $1m (£740,000) scheme to hire up to 10 AI “experts” to help with the adoption of the technology.

Sir Keir Starmer has spoken repeatedly about wanting to use the developing technology as part of his “plan for change” to improve the UK – with claims it could produce tens of billions in savings and efficiencies.

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The government is hoping the new hires could help with problems like translating classified documents en masse, speeding up planning applications or help with emergency responses when power or internet outages occur.

The funding for the roles is coming from Meta, through the Alan Turing Institute. Adverts will go live next week, with the new fellowships expected to start at the beginning of 2026.

Technology Secretary Peter Kyle said: “This fellowship is the best of AI in action – open, practical, and built for public good. It’s about delivery, not just ideas – creating real tools that help government work better for people.”

He added: “The fellowship will help scale that kind of impact across government, and develop sovereign capabilities where the UK must lead, like national security and critical infrastructure.”

The projects will all be based on open source models, meaning there will be a minimal cost for the government when it comes to licensing.

Meta describes its own AI model, Llama, as open source, although there are questions around whether it truly qualifies for that title due to parts of its code base not being published.

The owner of Facebook has also sponsored several studies into the benefits of government adopting more open source AI tools.

Mr Kyle’s Department for Science and Technology has been working on its mission to increase the uptake of AI within government, including through the artificial intelligence “incubator”, under which these fellowships will fall.

The secretary of state has pointed to the success of Caddy – a tool that helps call centre workers search for answers in official documents faster – and its expanding use across government as an example of an AI success story.

He said the tool, developed with Citizens Advice, shows how AI can “boost productivity, improve decision-making, and support frontline staff”. A trial suggested it could cut waiting times for calls in half.

My Kyle also recently announced a deal with Google to provide tech support to government and assist with modernisation of data.

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Joel Kaplan, the chief global affairs officer from Meta, said: “Open-source AI models are helping researchers and developers make major scientific and medical breakthroughs, and they have the potential to transform the delivery of public services too.

“This partnership with ATI will help the government access some of the brightest minds and the technology they need to solve big challenges – and to do it openly and in the public interest.”

Jean Innes, the head of the Alan Turing Institute, said: “These fellowships will offer an innovative way to match AI experts with the real world challenges our public services are facing.”