Air conditioning statistics 2027: the UK, Manchester and the North West

The best measure of air conditioning in English homes is the English Housing Survey, which asked 15,846 households in 2023-24 how they keep cool in summer. Researchers at the Energy Demand Research Centre and the University of Reading analysed the answers and found that 4.3% used air conditioning, about 1.06 million homes. [1]

It is not spread evenly. It follows money, the age of the home, where in the country you live, and whether anyone works from home. The households the researchers flag as most at risk from heat, older people and lone parents among them, are among the least likely to have it. [2]

Two patterns stand out. Homes built since 2000 are the most likely of any age to have air conditioning, at 6.6%, which fits with modern homes being more airtight and better insulated, so they hold heat in summer as well as in winter. And working from home matters: once someone is home four or more days a week, use rises to 6.9%. After allowing for income, home type and region together, households where someone works from home two or more days a week had 42% higher odds of using air conditioning. [1]

The North West, which takes in Manchester and the rest of Greater Manchester, has some of the lowest air conditioning use in England. 2.5% of households use it, which across the region's 3,153,403 households is roughly 80,000 homes. [1] [4]

At London's rate of 6.5%, around 125,000 more North West homes would have it. Even allowing for income, home type and the other differences between households, a North West household had 69% lower odds of using air conditioning than one in London. [1]

The survey does not publish figures for individual cities, so these regional numbers are the closest available for Manchester. In Manchester, the homes most prone to overheating tend to be top floor flats, glass fronted apartments in the city centre and Salford Quays, and offices with south facing windows. The Manchester page covers what installation involves in the city's mills, terraces and towers.

The summers are not standing still while that gap stays open. Summer 2026 was the warmest in the Met Office record for North West England and North Wales, which goes back to 1884, at a mean of 16.5°C. Summer 2025 was the second warmest. Seven of the ten warmest have come in 2003 or later, and the last ten summers averaged 1.5°C warmer than the 1961 to 1990 average. [5]

In 2024, households in about 3 million homes in England said their home got uncomfortably hot, 12% of occupied homes. In 2019 it was 1.7 million, or 7%. Owner occupied homes were the most affected at 13%, against 11% for both private and social renters. [3]

Air conditioning is still the exception even in homes that overheat. Among those 3 million households, 7% used it: 9% of owner occupiers, 6% of social renters and 4% of private renters. [3] Renters usually need their landlord's permission to fit anything, which goes some way to explaining the gap. The guide to air conditioning in a flat or apartment covers what that involves.

Summer 2026 was the hottest on record for the UK as a whole, with a mean of 16.5°C, ahead of 2025 at 16.1°C. [5] There were 55 days above 28°C, beating the previous record of 41 days set in 1976 and again in 1995, and 9 days above 35°C, almost double the previous record of 5 in 2020. The Met Office puts a summer with that many days over 35°C at about a 1 in 100 chance in today's climate. [6]

The UK first passed 40°C in July 2022, when Coningsby in Lincolnshire reached 40.3°C. The Met Office estimates a 50-50 chance of another 40°C day within 12 years of its 2025 study, and says the chance of exceeding 40°C is now over 20 times what it was in the 1960s. [7]

A 2.5kW split system does not draw 2.5kW of electricity. That figure is the heat it moves. Once the room is down to temperature it throttles back to roughly 0.3kW. At the price cap for October to December 2026, 26.32p per kWh with no VAT on electricity until 31 March 2027, that is about 8p an hour. [8] The running costs article goes through heating costs as well.

A fan and an air cooler are far cheaper to run because they do not lower the temperature of the room. A fan moves air across your skin, and an evaporative cooler adds moisture, which helps less in humid weather. A portable air conditioner does cool, but a single hose unit pushes the room air it has just cooled out of the window, so it draws the most power for the least effect. The guide to portable or fitted air conditioning compares the two in full.

Some of 2027 is already fixed in law or policy. Some of it is a projection, which we show with its working. And one part nobody can tell you: how hot summer 2027 will be. Seasonal forecasts do not reach that far ahead, so anyone quoting a forecast for next summer's weather today is guessing.

What is already decided

What the trend points to

If homes in England took up air conditioning at the pace measured from 2013 to 2020, about 83,000 more a year, 1.37 million homes would be using it by July 2027, 5.6% of households. [1] That pace came before the record summers of 2022, 2025 and 2026, so it is a floor more than a forecast. At twice the pace, it would be 1.68 million, or 6.8%: about 1 in 15 homes.

Overheating is moving faster. If the 2019 to 2024 rise carries on in a straight line, about 3.8 million homes in England would report overheating in 2027. [3] Further out, NESO's scenarios have between 10% and 40% of UK homes using air conditioning by 2050, depending on the path the energy system takes. [1] Researchers at UCL have argued that home air conditioning may already be more common than every one of NESO's 2024 scenarios assumed for 2030. [9]

Published figures for UK homes with air conditioning run from about 3% to 19%. They are mostly answering different questions.

For a single number, use the English Housing Survey figure: it is the largest, the most recent official measure, and it is the one the research on this page is built on.

Most figures on this page are quoted straight from the sources listed below. These are the ones we calculated ourselves:

• North West homes. 2.5% of the region's 3,153,403 households at the 2021 Census is 78,835, which we round to 80,000. At London's 6.5%, the difference is 126,136, which we round to 125,000.
• Summer temperatures. The Met Office's HadUK-Grid mean temperature series for England NW and North Wales and for the UK, June to August, 1884 to 2026, last updated by the Met Office on 1 October 2026. The averages and rankings are ours. The regional series includes North Wales.
• Running costs. Power drawn multiplied by 26.32p per kWh. The power figures are typical for each kind of appliance, not measured on a particular model.
• The 2027 projection. We start from 1.06 million homes at the middle of the survey, October 2023, and add 83,000 homes a year, the rate the government estimated from sales data for 2013 to 2020, for the 3.75 years to July 2027. The higher figure doubles that rate. Percentages hold the number of households at the survey's 24.7 million. The 83,000 figure covers the UK, so applying it to England alone slightly flatters the lower figure.
• Overheating in 2027. The rise from 1.7 million homes in 2019 to 3 million in 2024 is about 260,000 a year. Carried on for three more years, that gives about 3.8 million. A cool summer would bring the real figure in lower.

We will update this page when new data is published, and each quarter when the price cap changes. The date at the top shows when it was last checked.