How We Count: The Rules Behind Every Figure

Homes

Homes come onto Keyworker.com only when their owner lists them with us. Until the first owners have done so, the Find a home page shows the schemes the register records near your workplace, each marked as not yet listed, with a link to its record and its public sources. Every listed home will be labelled available now or coming soon, and the two are never mixed.

• Available now means the owner has confirmed the home in the last seven days, by a live feed from their system or a weekly upload. A home with no confirmation for seven days is marked unverified and comes off the list. You can view it and apply.
• Coming soon means a scheme shown before it opens, under Coming Forward, in order of expected completion. Dates and any prices are the owner’s estimates and may change. Where no price is shown, the owner sets rents before lettings open.
• In the register means a scheme that public sources record and that we have not listed. We have no arrangement with its owner unless its record says so. The record and its sources are the place to ask about homes and eligibility.
• Who it is for. Each home shows who it is for: reserved for a named employer’s staff, priority for a named employer’s staff, or open to everyone in work. Employers and owners see the arrangement behind each label: a nomination, an employment-linked tenancy, payroll rent, or a corporate let.

The Monthly Cost And Your Budget

Every price is the full monthly cost: rent, bills, and council tax together. Where the owner does not fix bills or council tax, we estimate them and say so. For two sharers in a two-bedroom home, we show the cost each.

The budget check compares that cost with the budget you enter. Within budget is marked as such. Up to ten per cent over is marked stretched. More than that is marked as the amount over. Any help your employer offers is shown beside the home and never changes the price.

Demand

Verified means a named person has confirmed their budget and move date. Indicative need is an employer’s estimate. We count only what has been confirmed, so a forecast never passes for demand.

Every requirement moves through five stages: indicative need, verified resident demand, agreed employer arrangement, contracted accommodation, and actual occupation. Where the For employers and For owners pages show totals, they are live counts across Keyworker.com of the people and employers who have registered. Figures for a single workplace or scheme are shown only once ten or more people have registered, rounded to the nearest five, so that no count can point to one person.

The Discount Calculator

The calculator on the For Owners page is illustrative. It excludes operating costs and assumes comparable homes. It compares an employer contract with the open market on rent, occupancy, and the costs the contract saves. A discount makes sense only with real savings or lower risk.

The Register

The register of staff housing schemes is a draft for review, dated 16 October 2026. Every scheme listed comes from a public source, and every source is shown on its record. Records from private documents and correspondence count in the totals only and are never listed. Named organisations have not endorsed Keyworker.com.

• Homes follow the owner’s count, so a room in a shared flat counts as one home. The Ministry of Defence total includes the service family accommodation estate.
• The cliff edge groups in-force agreements with employer payment support by the earliest point at which that support can end: expiry, an earliest exit, or a stated decision date.
• Any aggregate built from fewer than three agreements is withheld.
• Corrections are welcome at hello@keyworker.com, with the source.

The Site Check

Each result compares the site with the rest of England. High means the site ranks above three quarters of places or trusts. Low means it ranks below a quarter. The results describe the evidence today rather than forecasting lettings or rents. The sources and their dates are listed on the site check page.

• Employer demand counts jobs in public administration, education, health, residential care, and social work in the small areas whose centres lie within 5 km of the site. The total is compared with the same count around every small area in England.
• Recruitment pressure looks at the NHS trust operating the nearest main hospital within 5 km. The trust’s nurse leaver rate, staff leaver rate, and staff joiner rate are compared with those of similar trusts.
• Affordability pressure compares the average local one-bed rent with the starting pay of a newly qualified nurse and of a healthcare support worker, including any London weighting. The result is ranked against every local authority in England.
• Accessibility gives the straight-line distance to main NHS hospitals. It also gives door-to-door journey times by public transport to the nearest one, and to the next one when the nearest is under 1 km away, for an early start and a late finish on a weekday: from TfL’s journey planner in London, and from TravelTime elsewhere in England. Where neither finds a journey, it links to Google Maps. The full report times journeys to the five nearest hospitals for five shifts.
• Largest NHS employer is the trust with the most staff among those running a main hospital within 5 km. Staff are counted across the whole trust, not only at that hospital. The check also gives the journey by public transport to that trust’s nearest hospital, timed in the same way, when it is at least 1 km from the site.
• Jobs advertised adds the NHS jobs advertised within 3 miles today on NHS Jobs to the school jobs on Teaching Vacancies within 3 miles. The Office for National Statistics series counts online adverts from all employers for the local authority. London is one area in that series.
• Where the jobs are shades each small area on the map by the same public service jobs, placed at the centre of the area. The shades are relative to the busiest areas on the map, so they compare places within one map, not between maps.

Legal Notes

• Most private tenancies in England are now assured periodic tenancies, under the Renters’ Rights Act 2025. There is no fixed end date, and a resident can leave by giving two months’ notice. Deposits are held in a government-approved protection scheme.
• An employment-linked tenancy rests on an agreement between the employer and the owner, and the tenancy says so before it is signed. If the job ends, the owner can seek the home back with at least two months’ notice, through the courts, under Ground 5C, added by the Renters’ Rights Act 2025. Terms are confirmed for each agreement.
• For staff near the minimum wage, any charge for accommodation above the accommodation offset, £77.70 a week in 2026/27, reduces minimum wage pay. A nomination or payroll rent has no effect on minimum wage pay, provided the employer takes no fee or commission from the owner.
• A corporate let of longer than 12 months usually sits on the employer’s balance sheet as a lease.
• These notes are a summary for England, not legal advice. The rules differ in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Registrations

The forms on the Find a home, For employers and For owners pages are live. What you enter is saved to our database once you confirm your email with a 6-digit code, and you can see, change or delete it at your account. The privacy notice says what each form keeps and for how long. The register, the guide, the news and the site check are built from public sources.