The UK Energy Retail Market
Who supplies Britain now
Ofgem’s figures show each supplier’s share of domestic customer accounts, the number of active suppliers, default-tariff accounts and switching. Market share does not show which supplier is cheapest or best.
Retail market data status
Current- Content period:
- Q1 2026
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Q1 2026
Who supplies Great Britain’s households
17 suppliers were active in the domestic market as of Mar-26. In July 2026, the latest month published, 306,810 households switched electricity and 240,591 households switched gas.
Electricity market share
- Octopus Energy25.7%
- British Gas20.4%
- E.ON Next15.3%
- OVO11.7%
- EDF9.7%
- Scottish Power7.9%
- Utility Warehouse3.1%
- Other small suppliers3.0%
- Utilita2.3%
- So Energy0.9%
Gas market share
- British Gas26.7%
- Octopus Energy25.9%
- E.ON Next13.0%
- OVO9.8%
- EDF8.2%
- Scottish Power7.0%
- Utility Warehouse3.3%
- Other small suppliers2.7%
- Utilita2.4%
- So Energy1.0%
How many households are on a default tariff
Customer account figures exclude prepayment customers and are published by suppliers themselves. They cover only the supplier rows shown, not the whole domestic market, so they must not be totalled as a market share.
| Supplier | Fuel | Tariff type | Accounts |
|---|---|---|---|
| British Gas | electricity | Default, 3 years or more | 2,005,267 |
| British Gas | electricity | Default, under 3 years | 946,145 |
| British Gas | electricity | Fixed — an active choice | 2,198,207 |
| EDF | electricity | Default, 3 years or more | 912,359 |
| EDF | electricity | Default, under 3 years | 547,516 |
| EDF | electricity | Fixed — an active choice | 1,113,250 |
| E.ON Next | electricity | Default, 3 years or more | 1,691,260 |
| E.ON Next | electricity | Default, under 3 years | 649,799 |
| E.ON Next | electricity | Fixed — an active choice | 1,849,234 |
| Octopus Energy | electricity | Default, 3 years or more | 1,084,850 |
| Octopus Energy | electricity | Default, under 3 years | 1,960,118 |
| Octopus Energy | electricity | Fixed — an active choice | 4,130,260 |
| Octopus Energy | electricity | Other non-standard variable | 483,266 |
| OVO | electricity | Default, 3 years or more | 1,386,703 |
| OVO | electricity | Default, under 3 years | 739,127 |
| OVO | electricity | Fixed — an active choice | 747,347 |
| Scottish Power | electricity | Default, 3 years or more | 753,705 |
| Scottish Power | electricity | Default, under 3 years | 371,400 |
| Scottish Power | electricity | Fixed — an active choice | 756,346 |
| So Energy | electricity | Default, 3 years or more | 48,717 |
| So Energy | electricity | Default, under 3 years | 46,717 |
| So Energy | electricity | Fixed — an active choice | 176,329 |
| Utilita | electricity | Default, under 3 years | 63,279 |
| Utility Warehouse | electricity | Default, 3 years or more | 221,255 |
| Utility Warehouse | electricity | Default, under 3 years | 152,707 |
| Utility Warehouse | electricity | Fixed — an active choice | 133,062 |
| Utility Warehouse | electricity | Other non-standard variable | 366,044 |
| British Gas | gas | Default, 3 years or more | 2,671,366 |
| British Gas | gas | Default, under 3 years | 850,733 |
| British Gas | gas | Fixed — an active choice | 2,170,318 |
| EDF | gas | Default, 3 years or more | 553,652 |
| EDF | gas | Default, under 3 years | 384,996 |
| EDF | gas | Fixed — an active choice | 895,726 |
| E.ON Next | gas | Default, 3 years or more | 1,020,346 |
| E.ON Next | gas | Default, under 3 years | 438,291 |
| E.ON Next | gas | Fixed — an active choice | 1,430,539 |
| Octopus Energy | gas | Default, 3 years or more | 964,949 |
| Octopus Energy | gas | Default, under 3 years | 1,709,595 |
| Octopus Energy | gas | Fixed — an active choice | 3,594,209 |
| OVO | gas | Default, 3 years or more | 945,437 |
| OVO | gas | Default, under 3 years | 499,049 |
| OVO | gas | Fixed — an active choice | 569,896 |
| Scottish Power | gas | Default, 3 years or more | 525,461 |
| Scottish Power | gas | Default, under 3 years | 279,445 |
| Scottish Power | gas | Fixed — an active choice | 630,900 |
| So Energy | gas | Default, 3 years or more | 44,453 |
| So Energy | gas | Default, under 3 years | 39,484 |
| So Energy | gas | Fixed — an active choice | 156,806 |
| Utilita | gas | Default, under 3 years | 60,706 |
| Utility Warehouse | gas | Default, 3 years or more | 195,051 |
| Utility Warehouse | gas | Default, under 3 years | 125,095 |
| Utility Warehouse | gas | Fixed — an active choice | 117,038 |
| Utility Warehouse | gas | Other non-standard variable | 323,981 |
A supplier missing from a share list is one that was not trading in that quarter, not one with no customers. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Source: Ofgem retail market indicators.
How standard-tariff accounts pay
Percentages are shares within standard-tariff fuel accounts, not households or account counts. Electricity and gas have separate denominators and are never added.
Electricity accounts
Jan – Mar 2026
- Standard credit
- 16.0%
- Direct debit
- 73.0%
- Prepayment
- 11.0%
Electricity prepayment is unchanged at 11.0% from Oct – Dec 2025.
Gas accounts
Jan – Mar 2026
- Standard credit
- 15.0%
- Direct debit
- 75.0%
- Prepayment
- 10.0%
Gas prepayment is down 1.0 percentage point from Oct – Dec 2025.
Source: Department for Energy Security and Net Zero — Regional variation of payment method for electricity and gas (tables 2.4.2, 2.5.2)
Default tariffs
A default tariff is the tariff you usually move to when a fixed deal ends. It is covered by the price cap. The figures exclude prepayment customers and do not cover every supplier, so they are not a complete market share.
Which way the switching is running
The direction figure shows whether switches moved customers towards large established suppliers or away from them. The total switch count alone cannot show that.
Great Britain · 2003-01 to 2026-07
Which way the switching is running
Electricity, 2026-07
+69,718
net, away from the large suppliers · 306,810 switches in total
Gas, 2026-07
+56,302
net, away from the large suppliers · 240,591 switches in total
When it last ran the other way
Out of 283 months since 2003-01, these are the ones where more households joined a large legacy supplier than left one. The count of switches published alongside them shows none of this: it was still in the hundreds of thousands.
- 2021-12 · Electricity-2,655
- 2021-12 · Gas-1,442
- 2022-02 · Electricity-207
The counting method changed part way through
From April 2025 Ofgem takes these counts from Data Communications Company data; before that they came from distribution network operator and Xoserve reports. Nothing in the published figures marks the change and it does not show in the monthly totals, so months either side of it are not strictly comparable even though they look it.
That is also why 2025-04 gas (-13,473) is left out of the list above. It is the largest reversal in the whole series, it appears in one fuel only, it went back to normal the next month, and it falls on the changeover — which points at the measurement rather than at anybody switching.
A net gain is the balance of households moving between the large legacy suppliers and every other supplier, across the whole market. It is not a figure for any one company, and no supplier can be named from it. A positive number means more households left the large suppliers than joined them that month.
Whether switching saves you money depends on the tariff, your region, payment method and use. Check the price cap page for the current capped rates, then use the energy bill calculator to compare them with your own consumption.
Frequently asked questions
Why does a supplier show 0% market share?
Because it has stopped trading. Ofgem keeps a column for every supplier that has ever appeared, so a company that exited or was taken over shows zero rather than disappearing. A blank means the opposite: the supplier had not started trading in that quarter. Neither is a measurement of a company that exists and has no customers.
Do the customer account figures cover the whole market?
No, and this matters more than it sounds. The table covers the supplier rows Ofgem shows and excludes prepayment customers entirely. Prepayment households are among the most likely to be on a default tariff, so a share calculated from these numbers would be incomplete and biased. We name any supplier gaps in the current release rather than adding the figures into a market total.
Why are there so many fewer suppliers than there used to be?
The market peaked at around seventy active domestic suppliers and fell sharply through 2021 and 2022, when wholesale gas prices rose faster than capped retail prices and around thirty suppliers failed. Customers of failed suppliers were moved to a new one by Ofgem under the Supplier of Last Resort process, and the cost of that was added to everyone else’s bills.
Is Octopus really the biggest electricity supplier now?
On Ofgem’s own figures, yes — it overtook British Gas in domestic electricity. That is a genuine change: for decades the former incumbents held the largest shares. Note the shares are of customer numbers, not of energy supplied or revenue, so they say nothing about which supplier is cheapest.
