The end of two major government fuel poverty programmes has left millions of households facing an uncertain future, while the UK’s retrofit industry warns of mounting job losses and business failures.
The Energy Company Obligation (ECO4) and Great British Insulation Scheme (GBIS) both ended on 31 March 2026, bringing an end to direct national support for low-income and fuel-poor households to improve the energy efficiency of their homes.
Six months on, there are no equivalent nationwide schemes in place, raising questions over the Government’s long-term strategy for tackling fuel poverty and improving the UK’s housing stock.
National Energy Action (NEA) estimates more than 10 million UK households are now living in fuel poverty. Cold and inefficient homes can also have wider consequences, with fuel-poor households facing a higher risk of winter-related deaths.
Research by the Building Research Establishment (BRE) has estimated that excessively cold homes in England costs the NHS around £540 million a year in ‘preventable’ health costs.
Simon Francis, Coordinator of the End Fuel Poverty Coalition, said: “What we’re seeing now is the worst of both possible outcomes from the ECO4 scandal. The quality failures have not been fixed, the households left with damp and mould are still waiting and the scheme that was supposed to help them has gone with slow progress on delivery of the Warm Homes Plan.”
The Government has introduced other measures aimed at supporting households, including the Warm Homes: Local Grant and Warm Homes: Social Housing Fund. However, concerns have been raised about their scale and pace of delivery, with lower-than-expected uptake leaving parts of the retrofit supply chain without a sufficient pipeline of work.
The £15 billion Warm Homes Plan has also raised expectations across the sector. However, nine months after its publication, campaigners and industry representatives say there is still no detailed delivery roadmap setting out how the funding will translate into large-scale improvements to homes.
The uncertainty comes as households continue to face pressure from energy costs. The Government has announced that VAT on domestic electricity bills will be cut from 5% to zero from October, with the measure expected to save households around £45 a year.
However the reduction comes alongside a further increase in the energy price cap, meaning households will continue to face significant energy costs.
Mr Francis added: “We now need to see much quicker action to get the Warm Homes Plan up and running. It needs a published delivery timetable and a Warm Homes Guarantee, so that every publicly funded installation is verified as warm in the winter, helps cool properties in the summer and is safe and cheaper to run.
“Moving forward, consumer protections must ensure that any failure must be put right quickly and at no cost to the consumer – or the tax payer.”
The disappearance of the national retrofit schemes is also having an impact beyond householders. The sector claims thousands of jobs are at risk as companies that relied on government-backed energy efficiency programmes face a sharp reduction in demand.
Around 19,423 people have already lost their jobs since the decision to close ECO4 and GBIS, with a further 41,409 redundancies potentially expected within the next six months and 82,818 within the next year.
The North West is expected to be particularly affected, with almost 13,000 potential redundancies forecast in the region.
The business impact is also growing. Market intelligence indicates that 209 retrofit companies have entered administration, while a further 81 are considered at risk.
Industry representatives argue that the loss of established schemes risks damaging the skilled workforce needed to deliver future energy efficiency improvements. A prolonged slowdown could make it harder to scale up activity when larger government programmes eventually begin.
The situation has therefore created a dual challenge for policymakers: protecting households from high energy costs while maintaining the capacity needed to improve the efficiency of UK homes.
With fuel poverty remaining widespread and the cost of inefficient housing affecting both households and public services, the sector is calling for greater clarity over the Government’s plans.
The question now is whether the Warm Homes Plan can provide a sufficiently detailed and long-term framework to replace the support previously provided through ECO4 and GBIS.
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