The UK housing market is being held back because of banks’ and building societies’ reliance on computers rather than skilled underwriters to assess mortgage applications, according to independent research commissioned by Aldermore.

200 mortgage brokers throughout the UK were asked what percentage of mortgage enquiries had been declined over the past six months because their clients did not achieve a sufficiently high credit score. 88% of brokers said clients were “regularly declined”” by lenders’ automated credit scoring systems