Give Fuel Poverty a Voice 2025: survey shows a mixed picture
This year’s Inside Housing Give Fuel Poverty a Voice survey, in collaboration with safety technology specialist Aico, presents a mixed picture of how landlords are tackling rising fuel poverty
This year’s Inside Housing Give Fuel Poverty a Voice survey, in collaboration with safety technology specialist Aico, presents a mixed picture of how landlords are tackling rising fuel poverty (sponsored) #UKhousingIn association with:
In the four years since the inaugural Inside Housing Give Fuel Poverty a Voice survey, the topic it covers has rarely been out of the headlines. While the peak of the global energy crisis may have passed, the volatility of the market means that cost increases are still a fixture and so are concerns about those in or at risk of fuel poverty.
Indeed, the 2% increase in the energy price cap announced by Ofgem at the start of last month led to renewed calls for continuing support for those experiencing fuel poverty. Now, the results of our 2025 survey, run in association with safety technology specialist Aico, show the concerning extent to which this is an ongoing issue for social landlords nationwide.
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A total of 100 people working in housing replied to this year’s survey, which ran during September and October. The majority (61%) of respondents work at housing associations, with another 26% employed by a local or combined authority. A third of all respondents described their role as falling within housing management or tenant services.
Overwhelmingly, those completing the survey spoke of fuel poverty as a continuing problem. Some 43% of respondents said the number of their tenants living in fuel poverty had increased in the past 12 months.
Little wonder, then, that two-fifths (40%) of survey respondents said that more tenants had been looking for support with fuel poverty in the past year. However, that proportion is smaller than in last year’s survey.
In 2024, half of survey respondents said the proportion of their tenants in fuel poverty had increased over the previous year, and the same percentage reported a rise in those seeking help (compared to, respectively, 43% and 40% this year).
This year’s results also show some improvement in the sector’s outlook. Last year, 65% of respondents expected fuel poverty to increase further over the next 12 months, compared to 58% this year. In 2024, 75% anticipated a growing need for support in the coming year, but that figure has now fallen to 60%.
Unsurprisingly, almost half of respondents said they did not know how many of their tenants are believed to be living in fuel poverty.
Engaging with tenants
Organisations that actively monitor tenants in fuel poverty use a range of methods to do so. Many of those completing the survey spoke of using individual conversations with tenants to identify those struggling to heat their homes.
More than half (51%) spoke of opportunistic conversations taking place when visiting tenants for another reason, such as repairs or a gas safety check.
On the other hand, some 46% reported organising visits specifically to discuss fuel poverty.
Around a quarter spoke of having run community outreach events, and another quarter of having surveyed tenants to try to identify those struggling. Digital methods such as text and email are widely used for resident engagement, but phone calls to tenants, letters and posters are also reportedly still used.
There is evidence of more data-driven approaches being employed. Two-fifths of respondents said their organisation identifies those living in properties with low Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) ratings as a means of assessing fuel poverty risk, and 38% say their organisation cross-references other data, like tenants being in rent arrears or requesting food bank vouchers. In addition, 34% of respondents said they use information from partner organisations in other sectors.
Technology-centric approaches are limited, however. Fewer than 10% of all respondents said their organisation used data from smart meters in assessing fuel poverty risk, for instance. Only slightly more (14%) are using data from in-home temperature or humidity smart meters.
100
Housing professionals who filled in this year’s survey
43%
Respondents who reported a rise in tenants experiencing fuel poverty
40%
Respondents who reported more tenants seeking support with fuel poverty
58%
Proportion who expect fuel poverty to increase further
Yet social landlords are taking different approaches to identifying tenants at risk.
While just over half of those responding to this year’s survey said their organisation aims to proactively identify tenants in fuel poverty, 29% said no such effort was made. Meanwhile, 18% said they did not know whether their organisation had also adopted this kind of proactive approach.
The survey results suggest that, once identified, ongoing monitoring of the number of tenants living in fuel poverty is similarly patchy.
Under a quarter (23%) of respondents said their organisation proactively tracks the overall number of tenants who have to spend a significant proportion of their income to keep a comfortable temperature in the home – which is how we defined fuel poverty for the purposes of this survey.
A fifth of respondents, meanwhile, said that they were using customer service portals or apps to track and monitor fuel poverty. Asked whether their organisation had a business intelligence dashboard collating indicators relevant to fuel poverty, only 15% said yes.
While tracking may remain inconsistent and perhaps sometimes unscientific, the sector is still tracking this information more regularly.
When we first ran this survey in 2022, 29% of respondents said their organisation tracked how many people were living in fuel poverty. Last year, excluding those who said they did not know, it was 50%. This year, the figure was 31%, but the overall picture is still one of social landlords trying to understand how fuel poverty is affecting their tenants.
When asked to identify the single greatest barrier to helping tenants out of fuel poverty, 33% of respondents identified limited resources to help stock meet energy efficiency standards. “Ultimately, tackling the root cause through better-quality, energy-efficient homes would have the greatest and most lasting impact,” said one anonymous respondent working in housing management at a local authority.
This is, however, a multi-faceted and complex area. “Fuel poverty relates to many factors,” said a respondent who works at a senior level in asset management and property services at a Wales-based social landlord.
“You can have social tenants living in an EPC A property but still in fuel poverty, and the same works the other way – you can have tenants living in an EPC G property but not in fuel poverty. You need to consider multiple factors.”
Social landlords will, realistically, have a limit to how much they can assist tenants. Asked about the one biggest change that landlords could make to help tenants out of fuel poverty, one estates and facilities officer at a local authority spoke of the need for a more precise approach.
“[We need to] use the systems to correctly identify the poorest households so that assistance is targeted, rather than having a catch-all approach which increases costs and reduces the number we can assist.”
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