UK Planning Application Statistics 2026: 48,873 a Month, by Council, Trade and Season

01

How Many Planning Applications Are There in the UK?

Across the five complete months from 1 May to 30 September 2026, 377 councils validated 244,364 planning applications. That averages 48,873 a month. On a like-for-like panel of 288 councils, it runs at about 1,700 to 1,800 applications every working day.

We use May as the starting point on purpose. PlanWatch's council coverage grew by about 70% between January and May 2026 (from 222 councils to 376), so earlier months undercount. From May onwards, every month has between 374 and 377 councils reporting, which makes the months comparable.

*The like-for-like panel is the 288 councils with steady data in every month, divided by working days (England and Wales bank holidays). See methodology.

Why does May look low? Two reasons. May 2026 had only 19 working days, and councils that joined PlanWatch that month were only partly backfilled. On the like-for-like panel, daily volume barely moves: 1,678 a working day in May and 1,816 in September, a rise of about 8% (our arithmetic). Planning does not boom and bust through the summer. It runs at a steady, heavy pace.

What about a yearly figure? We do not have 12 months at full coverage yet, so we do not multiply the monthly average up to a year. A yearly number made that way would be a guess, and this page only publishes counts.

02

Planning Applications by Council: the 20 Busiest

The median council validated 102 applications a month. Half of all councils sit between 64 and 164 a month. At the top, a handful of large unitary authorities and central London boroughs run at four to seven times that pace.

Per-month figures are the five-month total divided by five, rounded to the nearest whole application. Together these 20 councils account for 45,317 applications, 18.5% of the national total (our arithmetic).

Volume is not the same as trade demand

The raw league table hides what matters to a trade: what is being applied for.

• Westminster is second for volume but outside the top 10 for roofing, brickwork and lofts. It is third in the country for tree works (473). Only 21.6% of its applications create windows work, against 34.63% nationally (our arithmetic from the trade tables).
• Enfield is only 13th for volume, but 2nd in the country for roofing work (1,043 applications) and first for lofts by a mile (567, or 113 a month). More than half of Enfield's applications (54%) create roofing work, against 28.88% nationally.
• Buckinghamshire tops the table for 11 of the 15 trades we ranked, from windows (1,322) and roofing (1,122) to skip hire and waste (1,430).
• Wiltshire leads for tree works (617), ahead of Buckinghamshire (488) and Westminster (473).
• Brent leads for demolition (458), ahead of Sheffield (439) and Cornwall (380).

If you are choosing a patch, the trade-level count beats the headline count every time. Every council has its own live PlanWatch page showing what is coming in now.

Looking for the odds of approval or the wait for a decision in each council instead? That is a different question, and it has its own pages: the planning postcode lottery (approval odds and wait times by council) and the official planning approval rates by council.

03

Which Trades Planning Applications Create Work For

PlanWatch reads every application description and matches it to the trades that will be needed. 145,656 applications (59.6%) created work for at least one trade. Of the rest, 53,014 were set aside before matching (advert consents, discharges of conditions, retrospective applications, outline schemes, certificates for existing uses and so on), and the others simply matched no trade.

There are two ways to count, and they answer different questions:

• "Names the job": the description says it outright, for example "Installation of solar panels" or "Loft conversion". Use this for "how many applications are there for X".
• "Creates the work": the job is implied. A two-storey extension needs a bricklayer, a roofer, scaffolding, an electrician, a plasterer and a skip, even if the application mentions none of them. Use this for "how much X work does planning generate". It is implied demand, not a promise of a job.

Window: 1 May to 30 September 2026, 377 councils, HIGH and MEDIUM confidence matches only. One application can create work for several trades, so the shares add up to more than 100%. Plastering and flooring are matched by the same rules, so they share one row.

† The solar and demolition "creates the work" figures are overstated. A rule meant for new homes also fired on extensions "to the dwellinghouse": 3,508 of the 15,370 solar matches (23%) and 3,185 of the 23,720 demolition matches (13%) came only that way. For solar, quote 621 a month that name the job. For demolition, quote 3,245 a month.

The most-named jobs on the register

Ranked by applications that name the job outright, per month:

1. Tree works: 6,279. The biggest single named job on the register, by a distance.
2. Demolition: 3,245. Often a garage, conservatory or outbuilding coming down to make way for an extension.
3. Windows, doors and rooflights: 2,940. 2,450 replacement windows or doors plus 489 rooflight applications (our arithmetic).
4. Loft conversions: 2,899.
5. Landscaping and driveways: 2,460.
6. Conservatories and orangeries: 1,857.
7. Fencing and gates: 1,394.
8. Solar: 621.
9. Bathrooms and en-suites: 396.
10. Re-roofs: 346.
11. Heat pumps: 318.
12. Kitchens: 180.

Some of those named counts are small because the work rarely needs planning permission on its own. Most re-roofs and most kitchen refits need no application at all. The work still turns up on the register, though, inside the extension and loft applications that create it. That is why a roofer looks at 14,116 a month, not 346.

One real description shows how many trades a single application feeds:

"Two storey side extension; single storey rear extension; porch to front; rooflights to front and rear" (Leeds, May 2026)

That is brickwork, roofing, scaffolding, windows and rooflights, electrics, plumbing, plastering, flooring and a skip, from one line on a council register.

04

Busiest Time of Year for Builders: What the Data Says

Raw monthly counts peak in July and dip in May for almost every trade. Most of that is working days and council coverage, not demand. Once you compare the same 288 councils per working day, a clearer picture appears.

Applications per working day on the 288-council like-for-like panel, May to September 2026.

What it means:

• Build trades are on a plateau, not a peak. Roofing, brickwork, windows, lofts and kitchens moved between -1% and -7% from May to September. Summer does not bring a rush of new planning-led build work. It brings a steady flow.
• Tree surgery is the big riser. Tree-works applications climbed every single month, from 185 to 268 a working day. Their share of all applications rose from 10.9% in May to 14.9% in September.
• Solar, fencing and demolition rise into late summer, up 20%, 18% and 13%.
• The pipeline runs about two months behind. The median application is decided 56 days after validation, the statutory 8 weeks. So a job validated in July is typically decided around September, and the work follows the decision.

What we cannot say yet: we have no winter months at full coverage, so we cannot name the year's true peak or trough. When we can, this page will say so.

05

What Kinds of Planning Application They Are

Most of the register is everyday building work. For May to September 2026:

Read this table with care. For 84% of applications the type is inferred from the description, because many council portals do not publish it, and anything unclear defaults to "Full". So "Full" is partly a catch-all and the householder share is probably understated. We have left out 3.8% labelled "demolition", because that is not a real council application type, only a label for descriptions that mention demolition.

How many planning applications are approved?

Keep this brief, because approval odds have their own pages. Of the applications validated from January to mid-May 2026 that ended in a clear approval or refusal, 88.7% were approved (27,565 approved against 3,506 refused, our arithmetic). Householder applications were approved 89.9% of the time and full applications 89.1%. Changes of use (77%) and prior approvals (79.5%) were the hardest.

Prior approvals are the fastest to decide (median 41 days), then tree works (45). Householder and full applications take a median of 56 days, listed building consent 64, change of use 69 and outline 75.

For council-by-council odds and waits, go to the planning postcode lottery and the official approval rates by council. For what each stage means, see how long planning permission takes.

06

How Fast New Planning Applications Appear

For a trade, a planning application is a lead with a sell-by date. So we measured how long it takes for an application to appear after the council validates it.

The median application reached PlanWatch 5 days after validation. The middle half arrived between 1 and 10 days after validation.

The slow tail is not random. Some council portals publish weekly lists, and some post applications well after the validation date. In July a batch of validations reached us late, which pushed that month's 90th percentile to 51 days. The other months sat between 16 and 33 days.

Monday is validation day

Monday validates about 41% more applications than Friday (59,161 against 41,825, our arithmetic). If you check the register by hand, early in the week is when the new batch lands. Not sure what "validated" means? See planning application validated: what it means.

07

Ten Things the Register Says About the Jobs

Underneath the totals, the descriptions tell you what is actually being built. All figures are May to September 2026.

1. Lofts mean dormers. 81.9% of loft-conversion applications include a dormer, 41.7% mention rooflights or Velux windows and 16.4% are hip-to-gable. A typical one: "Erection of rear dormer with Juliet balcony and two rooflights to front and side roof slopes." (Croydon, May 2026)
2. North London is loft country. Enfield alone had 567 loft applications, 1.76 times the next council, Barnet (323).
3. 11% of loft applications are lawful development certificates, the permitted-development route. They still show up on the register.
4. Planning-led windows lean heritage. Of the applications that name replacement windows or doors, 22.6% mention timber, sash or wood and only 11.2% uPVC. 12.6% are listed buildings or conservation areas. A typical one: "Replacement windows with slimline heritage-style timber double-glazed units, to match existing; rear door to be replaced with a double glazed timber door to match existing" (Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, May 2026).
5. Heat pumps are air source. 1,592 applications named a heat pump. 79% were air source (1,254); just 25 were ground source.
6. Solar comes with kit. Of the 3,104 applications naming solar, 8.4% are ground-mounted, 6.6% mention a battery and about 9% are on non-domestic buildings such as schools, warehouses and farms. A typical one: "Installation of roof-mounted solar photovoltaic panels to the rear roof slope and installation of an external battery and inverter unit to the rear elevation." (Cheshire West and Chester, Jul 2026)
7. Demolition is often small. 37% of demolition matches knock down a garage, conservatory, extension, outbuilding, porch or shed. 13.5% demolish a whole building. Only 456 (2.2%) are prior-approval demolition notices. A typical one: "Demolition of existing garage and single storey outrigger. New part single part two storey rear extension with patio to rear, new single storey garage store to side." (Stockport, May 2026)
8. Scaffolding is almost never named. The word "scaffold" appears in just 266 applications. Scaffolding work comes from extensions, lofts, demolition and re-roofs instead.
9. Dormers drive roofing. 16.8% of roofing work comes with a dormer (11,871 applications). Applications that name a re-roof are rare (1,668), because most re-roofs need no planning permission.
10. Kitchens follow single-storey extensions. 70% of applications that create kitchen work are single-storey extensions. Only 898 name a kitchen outright.

Bonus for tree surgeons: 18.7% of tree-works applications are in conservation areas, and tree works are approved more often (93%) and faster (median 44 days) than any other trade's applications.

08

What This Means for a Trade

Put the numbers together and planning applications look like the most predictable lead source in building work:

• There is plenty of it. 145,656 applications in five months created work for at least one trade. Nationally, 28.88% of all applications create roofing work and 34.63% create windows work.
• It is steady. Build-trade demand is flat from May to September, so there is no "season" to miss. Tree surgeons, solar installers, fencers and demolition firms get a late-summer lift on top.
• It is early. The median application is decided 56 days after validation, the statutory 8 weeks, and a job that needs planning permission should not start before then. A letter that lands in that window reaches the homeowner while they are still choosing a firm.
• It is local and specific. Every application has an address and a description of the job, so you can write to the right homes about the right work.

The catch is doing it properly. Write by post, cite the planning reference, and give an opt-out. Do not phone, email, text or door-knock people because you found them on the register. Marketing emails and texts to individuals need prior consent under PECR, and live marketing calls must be screened against the Telephone Preference Service. Our guide on whether it is legal to write to homeowners about planning applications explains the rules. This is general information, not legal advice.

If you would rather not trawl 377 portals yourself, PlanWatch's Demand Radar does it for you. Each month you get a deduplicated, mailing-house-ready list of addresses with planning applications for your trade in your patch, with refused and withdrawn applications already dropped. It costs £149 a month, exclusive cover keeps it to one firm per trade per patch, and you send the letters yourself or through your mailing house. Start at planning leads for trades, or read the full playbook on how to get leads from planning applications.

Trade-by-trade guides:

• How to get roofing leads from planning applications, or go straight to roofing leads from planning applications
• How to find scaffolding work in planning applications, or scaffolding leads by area
• How to find demolition work in planning applications, or demolition leads by area
• Loft conversion leads from planning applications, tree surgery leads, solar installer leads and window and door leads

09

How We Counted: Methodology and Limits

Source. PlanWatch's own planning register, built from council planning portals and planning.data.gov.uk. The figures were pulled on 20 October 2026 from 384,612 stored applications. Everything on this page is an aggregate count. The only text quoted is council description text, with no addresses, references or names.

Window. Applications validated from 1 May to 30 September 2026: five complete months, 244,364 applications, 377 councils. 373 councils have data in all five months. October 2026 is a partial month and is left out.

Dates. "Validated" is the council's validation date where the portal publishes it (the date the statutory clock starts), otherwise the date received or registered. "Seen by PlanWatch" is the first time our scrapers recorded the application.

Like-for-like panel. Seasonality uses 288 councils with data in every month from May to September and no month below 60% of that council's own median, divided by England and Wales working days. Scottish bank holidays differ slightly.

Trade matching. Each description is run through the same classifier the Demand Radar uses, keeping only high and medium confidence matches. "Names the job" counts matches through the trade's own trigger, such as solar, loft or re-roof wording, and is a lower bound. "Creates the work" adds work implied by extensions, lofts, new homes and similar. It is implied demand, not a count of confirmed jobs.

Lead freshness. To avoid counting historic backfill as delay, we only measured applications from councils that PlanWatch had already been watching for at least 7 days before the validation date (228,361 applications). Applications apparently seen before their validation date, and weekend validations, were left out of the medians but kept in the weekday counts.

Limits, plainly:

• Coverage grew through the year. Council coverage went from 222 in January to 376 in May 2026, so earlier months are not comparable and there is no full 12 months yet. That is why we publish no yearly total and no winter seasonality.
• Application types are mostly inferred. For 84% of applications the type comes from the description, with "Full" as the default.
• Approval rates rest on decided applications only. Many portals show a bare "Decided" with no outcome, and many applications are still pending, so rates are based on about 31,000 decisions in the January to mid-May group, not on every application. Decision dates come from one check of the register in August 2026.
• One matching rule over-counts. The new-home trigger also fires on extensions "to the dwellinghouse". In the window, 3,939 of the 10,740 applications it matched (37%) were not new homes. This inflates solar and demolition most, so for those trades we quote the "names the job" counts. In the build trades it adds roughly 1,700 to 2,300 matches each over five months; those are still real extension jobs, just credited by the wrong rule.
• Plastering and flooring are matched by the same rules, so we show them as one row.

Can I use these figures? Yes. Journalists, researchers, suppliers and trade bodies are welcome to quote them. Please credit PlanWatch and link to this page.