The survey is a part of the Highland Housing Challenge Action Plan agreed by the council in 2024, to tackle the impact of housing shortage on Highland communities, as well as meeting future demand for housing as a result of opportunities to grow the Highland economy.

A recent assessment undertaken as part of work to develop the business case for the Inverness and Cromarty Firth Green Freeport, forecasts that 24,000 new homes are required over the next 10 years to meet the needs of a growing workforce.

This is more than double the number of homes that would typically be built in Highland over the next decade (12,000).

To understand the number of new homes needed to support growth across the Highland economy, a survey of Highland employers has been launched.

The survey aims to assess whether local businesses and employers are struggling to recruit or retain staff due to a lack of housing, and whether housing shortage is a barrier to growing the economy in Highland.

Survey results will be used to inform the planning process to ensure that the right number of homes are developed in Highland in the short, medium and longer term. This includes assessing the number of homes needed by people living in Highland today, as well as assessing the scale of future housing need.

Future need will include both new households who will form, and those moving into the region to live or work. This includes households who will move to take up existing jobs or who will be attracted by new jobs created in the Highland economy.

If the number of homes needed in Highland can be fully measured, it means the Council and partners can make sure that enough land is allocated for housebuilding, enough funding is allocated for housing investment, and enough skills and labour is developed in the housebuilding industry.

To help identify how to tackle workforce housing shortages in Highland, we want to hear from local businesses of all sizes and in all sectors of the Highland economy.

This includes local employers across public and private sector organisations as well as businesses both large and small. We’re asking local employers to tell us if a lack of housing is affecting employee recruitment, retention and business growth. We also want to hear, what employers think should happen to increase housing supply for working-age people in the Highland region.

It should take no more than 10 minutes to complete the survey.

All survey responses will be for research purposes only and it will not be possible to identify individual businesses from the responses.

The survey will be open for 4 weeks and will close on Monday 1st December.

Local businesses can access the online survey via the following link.