Average Water Bill UK

Wondering if you pay too much for water compared to other households? NimbleFins has analysed family spending data from the Office for National Statistics—and bumped the figures up by recent inflation figures—to learn what households are spending on water now. Here's what we found out.

In this article

• Average UK Water bill
  • Water bill inflation
  • Water bills by region
  • Water bills by income level
• Average water usage

Average Water Bill UK

The average household water bill in the UK is now ~£634 per year. This figure has essentially doubled in roughly 20 years; we estimate that Brits paid just over £330 per year back in 2004.

Water bill inflation

Water bills have increased—but by how much?

CPI figures from the ONS indicate that water supply charges have increased a whopping 10.2% for the year as of July 2024, 7.4% in 2023, and 3.3% in 2022. The average annual increase for 2014 through 2022 was a 1.2% rise in water supply bills. So the increases in 2023 and 2024 have been a lot higher than usual, reflecting the high inflationary environment. This means people are paying an extra £50+ a year more this year for their household's water compared to last year.

Water bills by region

The region with the largest water bills is London, where households typically spend nearly £1,000 on their water supply each year. Compare this to Scotland, where households spend around £540, or 44% less. These figures reflect average household spending from 2022-2023 according to the ONS, adjusted for inflation through July 2024. Find your region in the table below to see how your spending compares to others in your area.

Note: the figures are marginally different in this section due to rounding.

Water bills by income level

Lower income households typically spend less on water, while higher income households spend more. We won't opine on why this is—there aren't many low income households with pools to fill. (Of course, there probably aren't too many higher income households with pools to fill, either!) Or maybe those with a tighter budget are simply better at taking shorter showers and washing with basin water as opposed to leaving the tap running.

Note, rounding errors affect the average household water cost when the data is broken out across different metrics, like income or geography.

How much water do we use?

A typical 3-person household would use roughly 135 cubic metres of water per year, or 370 litres per day. On a per-person basis, this translates into water usage of 123 litres per day per person.

A smaller household typically uses less water overall, but more water per person. For example, someone living alone usually uses around 178 litres per day.

A larger household typically uses more water overall, but less water per person. For example, a 5-person household usually uses around 493 litres of water per day in total, but just 99 litres per day per person.

Methodology

To calculate the figures in this article, we started with data from the Family Spending report 2022 regarding 'Water supply and miscellaneous services to the dwelling', which we then scaled up by inflation figures from March 2022 through May 2024 (specifically, CPI INDEX 04.4 : Water supply and misc. services for the dwelling).

To estimate the historical spending figures, we used adjusted current spending over the years using annual, historical CPI figures.

The usage figures were adapted from data provided by Southern Water.