11.0%
England fuel-poor (LILEE)
2024, the official headline
2.73m
Households in fuel poverty
England, 2024 LILEE count
1.11bn
Aggregate fuel-poverty gap
Down 7% on 2023
36.3%
Spending >10% of income on energy
The broader stress measure, 8.99m homes
Are you fuel-poor under UK rules?
Set your nation, household income, annual energy bill and EPC rating. We check you against the LILEE rule (England) and the 10% rule (Wales/NI) and list the support routes you should be claiming.
Pick "?" if you don't know, we'll assume D (the UK average).
Support routes to check first
Definitions verified May 2026, Source: GOV.UK Annual Fuel Poverty Statistics 2026; Welsh, Scottish and NI government fuel-poverty frameworks. Indicative only, your devolved administration has the final say.
The belief most readers carry
The official 11% number is real. It is not the whole picture.
Ask any UK household whether the country has a fuel-poverty problem and most will quote the headline figure: around one in nine homes. That comes from the official statistics published by the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero each March. The latest report puts the 2024 figure at 11.0% of English households, with a 11.2% projection for 2025. Both numbers are accurate. Both numbers are also a policy artefact rather than a count of cold homes.
Since 2021, England has used a definition called LILEE: Low Income, Low Energy Efficiency. It requires two conditions at the same time. A home only counts as fuel-poor if it has an EPC rating of D or worse AND its residual income, after the modelled cost of heating it adequately, falls below the official poverty line. Take either condition away and the household drops out of the statistic, no matter what it actually pays for energy.
That design choice is deliberate. LILEE measures who can be helped by insulating their home. It does not measure who is suffering. The same government data set shows that 36.3% of UK households (around 9 million) spent more than 10% of their after-housing income on energy in 2024. That is the broader picture every other article quietly leaves out.
Where standard guides fail
Why most fuel-poverty articles miss the point
The 11% number is easy to repeat. The reasons it understates the problem are harder to explain.
One country, four definitions
The same household can be "fuel-poor" in Wales but not in England, because Wales still uses the original 10% rule and England switched to LILEE in 2021. Scotland and Northern Ireland use a third and fourth measure. National comparisons are mathematically meaningless.
LILEE is a policy metric, not a hardship metric
LILEE was designed to identify households where insulation would help. That is a useful policy filter. It is not the same as identifying cold homes. A struggling family in a new-build EPC C flat with eye-watering bills is excluded from the headline number by design.
The broader stress number is buried
The same DESNZ report contains the affordability statistic: 36.3% of households spent over 10% of after-housing income on energy in 2024. That is roughly 9 million homes. It is the most honest read of the cost-of-living crunch and almost no headline uses it.
What LILEE actually measures
How the LILEE test works, with a worked example
Two conditions. Both must be true. Miss one, drop out of the count.
LILEE has been the official English measure since the 2021 Sustainable Warmth strategy. It replaced the earlier Low Income High Cost (LIHC) definition, which itself replaced the 10% rule used until 2013. The current test:
- Condition A, Low Energy Efficiency: the property has a Fuel Poverty Energy Efficiency Rating of D or worse. The FPEER is broadly equivalent to the EPC rating you'd see on Rightmove, with a small adjustment for benefit-funded rebates.
- Condition B, Low Income: the household's residual income, calculated by taking equivalised disposable income and subtracting modelled required fuel costs, falls below the standard relative poverty line (60% of median income after housing costs).
Both conditions are evaluated together. Either one alone is not enough.
Worked example, same family, two homes
A working-age couple on Universal Credit with two children. Net income £24,000, modelled required fuel cost £2,100, after-housing residual income £14,500.
- In a Victorian terrace, EPC E: Condition A passes (EPC ≤ D). Residual income £14,500 sits just under the poverty line, Condition B passes. Counted as fuel-poor.
- In a 2018 new-build, EPC B: Condition A fails (EPC > D). The household drops out of the LILEE count, even though the financial pressure is identical and the bill share of income is the same.
This is exactly the design intent. Government policy levers in fuel poverty are concentrated around insulating poor housing stock (ECO4, GBIS, the Warm Homes Plan). LILEE picks out the households those levers can actually reach. A family in a well-insulated home needs a different fix, namely income support, smart-tariff access, perhaps a rooftop solar package. That fix is real, but it is not "fuel poverty" policy in the technical sense.
Fuel poverty in four nations, same problem, four measures
The UK does not share a single fuel-poverty definition. Each devolved administration sets its own. Here is what each measure catches and what each one misses:
| Nation | Definition | What it catches well | What it misses |
|---|---|---|---|
| England | LILEE: EPC D or worse AND residual income below the poverty line after modelled fuel costs. | Poor housing stock where insulation grants will move the dial. | Low-income households in EPC A to C homes with high bills. Ignored by design. |
| Scotland | MIS-based: would need to spend more than 10% of net after-housing income on energy to keep a satisfactory regime, AND remaining income below the Minimum Income Standard. | Cold-home hardship plus genuine income insufficiency. Most rigorous of the four. | Reported with a lag, the official figure is always 12 to 24 months behind. |
| Wales | 10% rule: would need to spend more than 10% of full household income (before housing costs) on energy. | Simple, transparent, easy to compare year on year. Closer to a pure affordability test. | Penalises low-income rural households the same as wealthy big-house owners with high bills. |
| Northern Ireland | 10% rule: more than 10% of total household income spent (or required) on energy to maintain a satisfactory heating regime. | Captures NI's oil-heating reality, oil price spikes feed straight into the headline number. | No income-floor test, a wealthy household with a leaky country house can count as fuel-poor. |
Result: a household earning £22,000, with a £2,400 annual energy bill in an EPC C flat, is fuel-poor in Wales (10.9% of income on energy), fuel-poor in NI, not fuel-poor in England (EPC C fails Condition A of LILEE) and borderline in Scotland (depends on housing costs and household composition). Same family. Four different verdicts.
The latest 2024 numbers, in one place
All figures below are from the DESNZ Annual Fuel Poverty Statistics Report 2026, published 26 March 2026, covering the year 2024. The 2025 figures are modelled projections from the same report.
| Metric | 2024 (latest) | 2025 (projection) |
|---|---|---|
| England fuel-poor rate (LILEE) | 11.0% | 11.2% |
| England households in fuel poverty | ~2.73 million | ~2.78 million |
| Aggregate fuel-poverty gap | £1.11 billion | £1.14 billion |
| Average gap per fuel-poor household | £407 | £410 |
| UK households spending >10% of after-housing income on energy | 36.3% (8.99m) | ~36% (~8.9m) |
| Q2 2026 typical dual-fuel bill (DD, price-cap) | £1,641/year (down £117 vs Q1) | |
The aggregate gap fell by 7% between 2023 and 2024, which is the first meaningful drop since the energy crisis began. That improvement is driven almost entirely by the Q2 2026 price-cap reduction and the continued reach of ECO4 insulation work; the underlying number of fuel-poor households barely moved.
What goes wrong on the ground
Three traps the LILEE measure creates
Even a well-designed metric has blind spots. These are the costly ones.
High-bill, well-insulated homes drop out of policy support
A low-income family in a modern EPC B flat with electric heating can easily spend 14% of after-housing income on energy and still fail the LILEE test. They are invisible to ECO4. They are not counted in the headline 11%. The cost-of-living crunch hits them just the same.
Likely route out: Warm Home Discount, Cold Weather Payment, switch to a smart time-of-use tariff, claim Pension Credit if applicable.
Park homes and off-gas-grid often invisible to LILEE
Park homes don't get standard EPCs. Households relying on heating oil, LPG or solid fuel are imperfectly modelled in the FPEER calculation. The result is systematic under-counting in rural and semi-rural England, especially in the West Country, Mid Wales border and the Pennines. The separate Park Homes Warm Home Discount exists precisely because the main scheme can't see them.
Likely route out: Park Homes WHD application, ECO4 Flex via local authority, oil-tank insulation grants where available.
The average gap hides huge variation
An average fuel-poverty gap of £407 sounds manageable. It is also a mean. Households in the worst EPC F and G properties off the gas grid can have gaps of £1,500 to £2,000 a year. Insulating those homes pays back the policy investment in 3 to 4 years; insulating the average LILEE home pays back in 8 to 10.
Likely route out: ECO4 priority for "deep retrofit" cases; National Energy Action / Citizens Advice referral.
Why the April 2026 standing-charge shuffle quietly helps the fuel-poor
Ofgem changed the price cap on 1 April 2026. The headline was a 7% cut to the typical bill, from £1,758 to £1,641 a year. The structural change underneath was more important and far less reported: the cost of running the Warm Home Discount moved from the standing charge into the unit rate.
For a typical dual-fuel customer that drops the standing charge by roughly 4p per day, or £13 a year. It sounds trivial. For a fuel-poor household it is not. Low-use, low-income homes (exactly the cohort LILEE is meant to protect) were the ones being penalised hardest by ever-rising standing charges. The fixed daily fee landed on every bill regardless of consumption, so a pensioner using 1,500 kWh a year paid the same standing charge as a family using 5,000 kWh.
The new Q2 2026 split:
- ▸Electricity unit rate: 24.67p/kWh (up to absorb the WHD cost).
- ▸Electricity standing charge: 57.21p/day (down ~4p from the previous cap).
- ▸Gas unit rate: 5.74p/kWh; standing charge: 29.09p/day.
For a fuel-poor low-user, this trims £13 off the year before any benefit-based discount is applied. Stack it with the £150 Warm Home Discount and you've effectively cut a typical low-use bill by 15% without touching the boiler.
The routes out
Six support schemes, mapped to who they help
No single scheme solves fuel poverty. Combined, they shift the maths for most eligible households by £400 to £1,000 a year.
Warm Home Discount
£150 off winter electricity. Automatic in England and Wales since 2022. Apply in Scotland.
Who it helps: anyone on a qualifying means-tested benefit.
Cold Weather Payment
£25 per qualifying cold snap (Nov to Mar). Automatic for benefit recipients in eligible postcodes.
Who it helps: pensioners on Pension Credit, UC families with children under 5 or disability.
Winter Fuel Payment
£200 or £300 for pensioners. HMRC claws it back if your taxable income exceeds £35,000.
Who it helps: pensioners, especially those on Pension Credit (kept in full).
ECO4
Free or part-funded insulation and heating upgrades for fuel-poor homes. Runs to 31 December 2026.
Who it helps: EPC D to G owners or tenants on means-tested benefits.
Great British Insulation Scheme (GBIS)
Broader eligibility than ECO4. Open to EPC D to G homes in low Council Tax bands. Runs to 31 March 2026.
Who it helps: working households in poor housing stock who fall just outside ECO4.
Pension Credit
Tops weekly income to £238 (single) / £363.25 (couple). The gateway benefit that unlocks WHD, CWP and full WFP.
Who it helps: pensioners on a low income, including the ~850,000 who never claim it.
What to actually do
What to do now, depending on your situation
Generic advice rarely fits. Find your case below and start there.
If you're a pensioner on a low income
Run the Pension Credit calculator on gov.uk first. Even £1/week of Guarantee Credit unlocks the £150 Warm Home Discount, the full Winter Fuel Payment, Cold Weather Payments and full Council Tax Reduction. Can be backdated three months.
If you're working-age on Universal Credit
You qualify for Warm Home Discount automatically in England and Wales. Cold Weather Payment if you have a child under 5 or a disability premium. Apply for ECO4 through your supplier if your EPC is D or worse.
If you're off the gas grid
Order heating oil collectively if a local oil-buying club exists. That typically saves 5 to 15p/litre. Check eligibility for the Heat Pump element of ECO4 and the Boiler Upgrade Scheme (£7,500 grant for ground or air-source heat pumps). Park-home residents apply through the Park Homes WHD.
If you own an EPC D to G home
Get a current EPC if yours is over five years old. Apply through your supplier for ECO4 if you receive a means-tested benefit, or for GBIS if you don't. A loft + cavity wall combo typically saves £250 to £400/year on a typical home.
If you're a private renter
Landlords cannot legally let a home below EPC E. If your home is rated F or G, raise it in writing with your landlord and copy the local authority's housing standards team. ECO4 funding can go directly to landlords for tenant-occupied homes.
If you're in arrears with your supplier
Ask for a written affordable repayment plan. Ofgem rules require it. Charity grants are available from the British Gas Energy Trust, EDF Customer Support Fund, and Octopus Energy Assist (typical award £500 to £1,500). Contact Citizens Advice if your supplier refuses.
UK fuel poverty, frequently asked questions
Bottom line
Why the headline fuel-poverty number matters less than it looks
The 11% LILEE figure is the right number to quote when you're arguing for insulation funding. It identifies the homes where ECO4 and GBIS can move the needle. It is the wrong number to quote when you're describing the lived experience of energy hardship across the UK, because it leaves out almost three-quarters of the households spending more than a tenth of their income on energy.
Both numbers are in the same report. Both are public. The difference between them is the gap between policy and reality. If you're an eligible household, your job is to know which routes out actually exist for your situation. The six support schemes mapped above will, between them, shift the maths by £400 to £1,000 a year for most qualifying households.
If you're not eligible but spending too much, your job is tariff choice and energy efficiency on your own dime. Either way, start with the self-check at the top of this page and work down.
Struggling with energy bills?
National Energy Action's Warm and Safe Homes line gives free, independent advice tailored to your situation.
More UK energy scheme guides
The services and products mentioned on this website may only represent a small selection of the options available to you. Selectra encourages you to carry out your own research and seek advice if necessary before making any decisions. We may receive commission from selected partner providers on sales of some products and/or services mentioned within this website. Our website is free to use, and the commission we receive does not affect our opinion or the information we provide.