UK Hard House or simply Hard House is a style of Hard Dance music that emerged in the 1990s.

Proper hard house is typified by a set formula of up-tempo house music compressed kick drums, signature style off-beat basslines and the use of 'hoover' type sounds. In contempt of the name it shares some parts in style with house music, but borrows elements heavily from trance music (synths and sometimes breakdown formula), and hardcore/rave music (hoover sounds, chants). Generally, hard house is part of a wider group of styles called Hard Dance and has little in common with the modern trance or house scenes going for a stronger storm sound. Hard Dance also encompasses NRG or Hard NRG, which UK Hard House is often confused for. However, the two have some variance from each other, and are considered two separate genres by Hard Dance enthusiasts.

House was first and foremost a direct descendant of dance. Dance had already been going for about 10 years. But the underground scene was beginning to develop a new style that was deeper, rawer and designed to make people dance. Dance had already produced the first records to be aimed specifically at DJs with extended 12" versions that included long percussion breaks for mixing purposes and the early eighties proved a vital turning point. Music from Europe also helped change the scene with Depeche Mode, Soft Cell, and other English electronic pop. One of the reasons for their popularity was two clubs - Chicago's Warehouse and New York's Paradise Garage. The music was as varied as the people - R&B based Black dance music and disco mixed with things as different as rock. For most people, these were the places that acted as breeding grounds for the music that eventually came to be known after the clubs - house and garage.

In Britain the growth of house can be divided around the "Summer of Love" in 1988. House had a presence in Britain almost as early as it appeared in Chicago; however there was a strong divide between the House music as part of the gay scene and 'straight' music. House grew in northern England, especially Manchester, as an extension of the 'Northern Soul' genre. The key English club was The Ha?ienda in Manchester, founded in 1982 by Factory Records. But until 1986 the club was a financial disaster, the crowds only started to grow when the resident DJs (Pickering, Park and Da Silva) started to play House music. House was boosted by the tour in the same year of Knuckles, Jefferson, Fingers Inc. (Heard) and Adonis as the DJ International Tour. Amusingly, one of the early anthemic tunes, "Promised Land" by Joe Smooth, was covered and charted within a week by the Style Council. The first English House tune came out in 1986 - "Carino" by T-Coy. Europeans embraced House music, and began booking legendary American House DJs to play at the big clubs, such as Miss Moneypenny's and Ministry of Sound, whose resident, DJ Harvey brought in Larry Levan.