Scotland and Yorkshire recorded the highest levels of housing market activity in the UK during 2025, with Birmingham, Somerset, Cornwall and Buckinghamshire also featuring in the top 10, new research shows.
Based on the latest government data on residential sales volumes, the study carried out by The Property DriveBuy found that 504,180 properties have been sold so far this year, equivalent to a monthly average of 63,023 transactions.
On a regional level, the South East has been the nation’s most active homebuying hotspot, with a total of 71,060 transactions equal to an average of 8,883 per month.
The North West has seen 53,662 sales, followed by the East of England (48,408), South West (46,823), London (46,424), Yorkshire & Humber (39,935), West Midlands (38,166), East Midlands (37,464), and North East (19,895).
However, on a local authority level, the UK’s most active markets are largely located in two places – Scotland and Yorkshire.
The City of Edinburgh has seen the highest number of sales so far this year, totalling 7,351, or an average of 919 per month. And in a close second we find the City of Glasgow with 7,095 sales.
This is followed by two Yorkshire locations. In North Yorkshire, there have been a total of 5,466 transactions, while in Leeds the total comes to 5,451.
Birmingham rounds off the top five homebuyer hotspots for 2025 so far, with 5,422 sales, while Somerset (4,706), Cornwall (4,553), Fife (4,492), Buckinghamshire (4,295), and South Lanarkshire (4,234) complete the top ten.
Steve Foreman, founder and CEO of The Property DriveBuy, commented: “What this data clearly shows is that the UK housing market in 2025 is anything but uniform, and not always predictable. While overall transaction volumes are averaging just over 60,000 per month, activity varies dramatically depending on location, with parts of Scotland and Yorkshire outperforming many traditionally dominant regions.
“This divergence is being driven by a combination of factors, including relative affordability, local employment strength, lifestyle appeal, and buyer migration away from higher-priced southern markets.
“For buyers, this means competition and pricing pressures can look very different just a few miles – perhaps even meters – apart, while for sellers it reinforces the importance of understanding true, hyper-local demand rather than relying on national headlines.”