The vast majority of homes in the UK are heated by natural gas boilers. Around 21.2 million households, or 86% of the total, rely on a gas-fired central heating system as their main source of warmth. The remaining homes use a mix of electric heating, oil, solid fuels, and a small but growing number of heat pumps. That balance is starting to shift as the government pushes to decarbonize home heating, but gas remains dominant by a wide margin.
Gas Central Heating
A typical UK home has a gas boiler connected to a system of radiators in each room, controlled by a central thermostat or individual radiator valves. Natural gas arrives through the national gas grid, which covers most urban and suburban areas. The boiler heats water, pumps it through the radiators, and usually provides hot tap water as well. Most boilers installed in the last 15 to 20 years are condensing boilers, which recapture heat from exhaust gases and run more efficiently than older models.
Gas heating became the standard in the UK during the 1960s and 1970s after the discovery of North Sea gas reserves. It replaced coal fires in most homes and has remained the cheapest and most convenient option for properties connected to the grid. Per unit of heat, natural gas costs roughly a third of what electricity costs at standard rates, which is the main reason it has held its position for so long.
Electric Heating
About 1.7 million UK households heat their homes with electric storage heaters. These are most common in flats, especially social housing and purpose-built apartments that were never connected to the gas grid. Storage heaters work by drawing electricity overnight during off-peak hours, when it costs less under tariffs like Economy 7 or Economy 10, and slowly releasing the stored heat throughout the day.
The experience of living with storage heaters is different from gas central heating. You get the most warmth in the morning, and by late afternoon the heat can fade. Modern storage heaters have improved controls and better insulation to hold heat longer, but many UK homes still have older models that offer limited flexibility. Some homes use panel heaters or convector heaters instead, which run on standard-rate electricity and heat rooms on demand. These give more control over timing but cost significantly more to run.
Oil and Solid Fuel Heating
Around one million homes in Great Britain use oil-fired heating, sometimes called kerosene heating. These are almost exclusively in rural areas that sit beyond the reach of the gas grid. An oil boiler works similarly to a gas boiler, heating water for radiators and hot taps, but draws fuel from a storage tank in the garden that needs periodic refilling by a delivery truck. Oil prices fluctuate more than gas prices, so heating costs can be unpredictable from year to year.
A further 809,000 households use either oil or solid fuel as their main heating source (the government groups these together in its survey data). Solid fuel includes wood-burning stoves, multi-fuel stoves, and a small number of coal fires still in use. Wood burners have grown popular as supplementary heating, especially in rural homes, though concerns about air quality have led to tighter regulations on the types of fuel and appliances that can be sold.
Heat Pumps
Heat pumps are the technology the UK government is betting on to replace gas boilers over the coming decades. An air source heat pump, the most common type, works like a refrigerator in reverse: it extracts heat from outdoor air and concentrates it to warm water for your radiators or underfloor heating. Ground source heat pumps do the same thing but pull heat from underground through buried pipes, which is more efficient but more expensive to install.
Adoption so far has been modest. Around 72,000 heat pumps were installed in the UK in 2022, well short of the government’s target of 600,000 installations per year by 2028. The main barriers are upfront cost and the work involved. A typical air source heat pump installation runs between £10,000 and £15,000 before grants. Some homes also need larger radiators or better insulation to get the best performance, since heat pumps produce lower-temperature heat than gas boilers.
The Boiler Upgrade Scheme offers a £7,500 grant toward both air source and ground source heat pumps, which brings the cost closer to a standard boiler replacement. Heat pumps are cheaper to run than direct electric heating and, as the electricity grid gets cleaner, they produce far lower carbon emissions than gas boilers. They work best in well-insulated homes and are easier to install in new builds than in older properties.
District Heating
A small percentage of UK homes, mostly in cities, connect to district heating networks. These systems generate heat centrally, often from a combined heat and power plant or large-scale heat pump, and distribute hot water through insulated pipes to multiple buildings. Residents don’t have individual boilers; instead, a heat exchanger in each home draws from the shared network. District heating is common across Scandinavia and parts of Europe, but it accounts for only about 2% of UK heat demand. Several cities, including London, Leeds, and Nottingham, are expanding their networks.
What’s Changing
The UK government plans to ban fossil fuel boilers in new-build homes from 2026, meaning new houses will need to be fitted with heat pumps or connected to district heating from that point forward. Existing homes will not be forced to rip out working gas boilers, but the direction of policy is clear: as boilers reach the end of their lifespan (typically 12 to 15 years), homeowners will face growing incentives to switch to low-carbon alternatives.
Hydrogen has been discussed as a possible drop-in replacement for natural gas, since it could theoretically flow through existing pipes and burn in modified boilers. A neighborhood-scale trial in Fife, Scotland, is under construction and planned to go live by summer 2025. However, the government has scaled back its hydrogen heating ambitions, canceling planned village trials and pausing work on a larger town pilot. A consultation on hydrogen’s role in home heating is expected in 2025, but the technology is far from proven at the scale needed to heat millions of homes.
For now, the practical reality is that the UK heats overwhelmingly with gas, and the transition away from it will take decades. If you’re in a gas-heated home, your boiler will likely be replaced with another gas boiler at least once more before low-carbon options become the default. If you’re off the gas grid, a heat pump is already the most future-proof option, particularly with the available grants reducing upfront costs.