The UK Private Rented Sector: Size, Stock and Energy Performance

The private rented sector is one of the largest housing tenures in the UK, and its homes are consistently the least energy efficient of the three main tenures. In England alone, the private rented sector accounted for 4.7 million households, or 19% of all households, in 2023 to 2024¹. In Scotland, the Scottish House Condition Survey 2024 found that 50% of private rented dwellings were rated within EPC band C or better, below the owner-occupied sector at 52%, and that 14% of private rented dwellings sat in bands E, F or G, compared with around 2% in the social sector and 12% of owner-occupied homes².

For the households living in them, these numbers translate directly into higher bills and colder rooms. The legal floor in England and Wales is currently an EPC rating of band E: a property rated F or G cannot lawfully be let until it is improved, or an exemption is registered³. Proposals consulted on in 2025 would raise the minimum to the equivalent of EPC C by 2030 in England and Wales⁴, while Scotland has consulted on its own standard using a reformed certificate, with legislation proposed to require a minimum standard to be met before the end of 2028⁵.

What the private rented sector is, and how many households it houses

The private rented sector, often shortened to PRS, covers homes let by private landlords to tenants at a market rent, as distinct from owner-occupied homes and from social housing let by councils and housing associations. It is the tenure of students, many younger households, mobile workers and a growing share of families, and its size makes its energy performance a matter of national consequence rather than a niche concern.

The headline figure comes from the English Housing Survey: in 2023 to 2024, the private rented sector accounted for 4.7 million households in England, or 19% of the total¹. That is roughly one household in five. Comparable survey evidence for Scotland comes from the Scottish House Condition Survey, which measures the physical condition of Scotland's homes alongside household circumstances, and which in 2024 rated 50% of private rented dwellings at EPC band C or better².

The sector's scale has grown over time, and government policy has followed it. A House of Commons briefing from 2015 recorded new regulations for the private rented sector with milestone years of 2020, 2025 and 2030, an early statement of the trajectory that later policy has built on⁶. A stakeholder working group report to government in 2014 examined the proposed energy efficiency regulations for the domestic private rented sector under the Energy Act 2011, the legislative foundation for the standards in force today⁷. For tenants, the practical questions of what can and cannot be changed in a rented home are covered on our renting and home energy page, and landlords' wider duties on landlord energy and safety duties are set out separately.

EPC bands A to G: what the certificate actually measures

An Energy Performance Certificate rates how energy efficient a building is, with ratings from band A, described as very efficient, down to band G, described as inefficient⁸. Both the energy efficiency rating and the environmental impact rating are scored on a scale of 1 to 100 and split into those bands⁹. The higher the score, the better the band, and the lower the running costs a home is modelled to have.

A certificate is required whenever an existing building is sold or let¹⁰, which is why the EPC is the common currency of rented housing: every lawful letting has one, and the public register makes each one searchable. The certificate explains how energy efficient a building is and how it could be improved, and each one comes with a report setting out cost effective measures such as low energy bulbs or upgraded insulation.

The bands matter to renters because they are the only standardised, publicly visible measure of a home's efficiency before signing a tenancy. They matter to landlords because the law attaches consequences to them: a home in the bottom two bands cannot lawfully be let in England and Wales without improvement or a registered exemption³. What the certificate does not tell a reader, and its limits, are covered further down this page.

The private rented stock ranks lowest of the three tenures

Across every published measure, the private rented sector performs worst of the three main housing tenures. The Scottish Government states it plainly in its own consultation material:

The numbers bear this out. In Scotland, 48% of private rented properties are rated EPC D or lower, and the sector has the highest percentage of E, F or G rated properties at 14%, compared with 5% in the social rented sector¹². The Scottish House Condition Survey 2024, using the SAP 2012 methodology, found around 2% of social sector dwellings in bands E, F or G, against 12% of owner-occupied dwellings and 14% of the private rented sector². A Scottish consultation on the private rented minimum standard quoted a wider gap still: twenty percent of private rented housing rated E, F or G, compared with 6% of social housing¹³.

The pattern is consistent across sources and across survey years, which is what makes it a structural finding rather than a statistical blip. The social sector, subject to its own standards and investment programmes, has pulled away from the private sector: the Scottish Government reports that homes in the social rented sector are now some of the most energy efficient in Scotland, with 85% already achieving EPC D or above⁵.

The gap in private lets and who pays for it

The reasons for the gap are structural to the tenure. The person who pays for the fabric of the building, the landlord, is not the person who pays the energy bills, the tenant, so the financial incentive to insulate or upgrade heating is split. Tenancies are also short: the Scottish Government's 2017 consultation noted around 60% of tenancies in the sector lasting less than two years, which weakens any tenant's case for negotiating long-term improvements and any landlord's payback from making them¹⁴.

The cost of that gap falls on the households least able to absorb it. Scottish analysis of fuel poor households in homes below EPC band C found that fuel poor households are less likely to live in the owner-occupied sector, 45% versus 75% of non-fuel-poor households, and more likely to be in the rental sectors: 20% versus 11% in private rental, and 35% versus 14% in social rented housing, over the 2017 to 2019 period¹⁵. Renters are over-represented among fuel poor households precisely because the homes they rent are over-represented in the worst EPC bands.

There is also a condition dimension. The Scottish House Condition Survey 2024 found 25% of private rented sector dwellings falling below the Tolerable Standard, Scotland's statutory minimum for habitable housing, a rate markedly worse than other tenures². Poor fabric, damp and mould travel together with poor energy efficiency, and tenants dealing with those problems have separate remedies covered on our pages on damp and mould in rented homes and on asking a landlord for energy improvements.

The legal baseline today: an E rating

In England and Wales, the legal floor is the 2018 Minimum Level of Energy Efficiency standard: no domestic privately rented property with an EPC rating below band E may be let¹⁶. The rule is stated in official guidance in identical terms from multiple authorities: a property rated F or G must be improved to at least an E before it can be rented out³, and landlords may not grant a tenancy to new or existing tenants if the property has an EPC rating of band F or G, unless an exemption applies¹⁷.

The standard applies to domestic private rented properties, including public sector landlords acting as landlords of such properties¹⁷. Welsh local authority guidance for landlords describes the same requirement and the same prohibition¹⁶. In practice this means:

• A valid EPC is required before letting, since the certificate is required when letting an existing building¹⁰.
• A rating of E or above satisfies the standard; no further improvement is compelled by it³.
• A rating of F or G triggers the improvement obligation, or the exemption route, before any tenancy is granted¹⁷.

The band E floor has been in force since 2018, and it is a floor, not a target: a band E home is lawful to let while still being, on the survey evidence, among the least efficient homes in the country. The 14% of Scottish private rented homes in bands E, F or G² are the group this standard addresses, but the far larger group in band D, 48% of the Scottish sector when D and below are counted together¹², remains untouched by it.

Plans to lift the requirement to band C, and their status

The policy direction across the UK is upward, though at different speeds and with different mechanisms in each nation.

England and Wales. A consultation published in February 2025, Improving the energy performance of privately rented homes: 2025 update, proposed raising the minimum energy efficiency standard required of privately rented homes in England and Wales to the equivalent of EPC C by 2030, alongside increasing the number of exemptions available and amending current exemptions⁴. The Clean Flexibility Roadmap update of July 2026 records the intended mechanics: landlords will be required to ensure their properties meet a minimum score of EPC C against the fabric performance metric and either the heating system or smart readiness metric, from 1 October 2030¹⁸. The government's response to the Climate Change Committee progress report likewise records the aim of preventing landlords renting out homes under an EPC rating of C or equivalent by 2030, and requiring all social housing in the UK to meet an EPC rating of at least C or equivalent¹⁹.

Scotland. The Heat in Buildings Strategy set the direction in 2021: requiring all private rented sector properties to reach a minimum standard equivalent to EPC C by 2028, where technically feasible and cost-effective, with a backstop of 2028 for all remaining existing properties²⁰. Scottish Government policy pages record proposals for legislation to require a minimum energy efficiency standard to be met before the end of 2028 for the private rented sector⁵. The mechanism has since evolved: a consultation that closed at the end of August 2025 consulted on a potential minimum energy efficiency standard for the private rented sector using the reformed domestic EPC's Heat Retention Rating, and that consultation is under analysis²¹. The scoping consultation on the Heat Energy Efficiency Technical Suitability Assessment describes the intended outcome as all privately rented properties, as far as possible, achieving a Heat Retention Rating of Band C on the reformed EPC²².

Non-domestic. For completeness, privately rented commercial buildings in England and Wales have been set a minimum efficiency standard of EPC band B by 2030²³, a reminder that the private rented minimum standards regime extends beyond homes.

Exemptions and the register: when a property need not meet the standard

Not every property can reach band E, and the regulations recognise this through a system of registered exemptions. The PRS Exemptions Register is for properties which are legally required to have an EPC, are let on a relevant tenancy type, and cannot be improved to meet the minimum standard of EPC band E for one of the listed reasons²⁴. To register, a landlord must provide the address of the relevant rental property, which exemption type is being registered, and a valid Energy Performance Certificate for the property²⁴.

The categories of property excluded from the regulations altogether include, under the Energy Efficiency (Private Rented Property) (England and Wales) Regulations 2015 as described in trading standards guidance¹⁷:

• Listed or officially protected properties where the requirements would unacceptably alter them
• Temporary buildings used for two years or less
• Places of worship
• Low-energy industrial sites, workshops or non-residential agricultural buildings
• Detached buildings with under 50 m2 total floor space
• Buildings occupied less than four months a year, or residential buildings to be used for 25% of the year or less¹⁰
• Properties due for demolition with the relevant consents
• Certain HMOs not sold or let as a single rental in the past ten years

The register is public. It exists, in the words of the official guidance, to "Find private rental properties that are registered as exempt from the minimum standard of energy efficiency."²⁵ It shows when the property was registered as exempt and the reason, and it also lists properties issued with penalties for failing to comply with these standards²⁵. Exemptions are time-limited: after the exemption expires, the landlord must try again to improve the property's EPC rating to meet the minimum level of energy efficiency, and if this still cannot be achieved, a further exemption may be registered²⁴. The 2025 consultation proposes increasing the number of exemptions available and amending current exemptions⁴.

For a tenant, the register is a check worth running before signing: an exempt property is exempt for a stated reason, and that reason is on the public record.

The certificate's strengths and blind spots for tenants and owners

An EPC is a modelled assessment, not a measurement of a household's actual bills. It rates the building's fabric and services on a standardised basis, which makes homes comparable, but it cannot know how a particular household heats, ventilates or occupies the home. Two identical flats with identical certificates can produce very different bills.

For landlords, the certificate carries legal weight but also legal protection. The regulations as introduced in 2015 provided that, in the domestic sector:

Each certificate also carries a report setting out the cost effective measures that could improve the property's energy efficiency and its rating, such as low energy bulbs or upgrading insulation. That report is the practical to-do list behind the band: it is where a tenant or owner should look for what could actually change in the home, and in what order, since the recommendations are cumulative and are meant to be installed in the order they appear.

That cost-effectiveness principle has carried through the regime: the Scottish trajectory to EPC C is likewise framed as applying where technically feasible and cost-effective²⁰. A landlord who has installed all fundable improvements is not required to go further at any cost.

What the certificate does not tell either party is whether the home will be warm, dry or cheap to run in practice. The condition data tells its own story: 25% of Scottish private rented dwellings below the Tolerable Standard in 2024² is a figure no EPC band captures. Tenants concerned about damp, mould or heating faults have remedies outside the EPC system, covered on our pages on landlord duties and damp and mould.

How Scotland diverges: evidence, goals and funding for landlords

Scotland runs its own evidence base and its own policy timetable, and the differences matter to anyone renting or letting north of the border.

The evidence comes from the Scottish House Condition Survey, which sits within the Scottish Household Survey programme. The Scottish Household Survey provides robust evidence on the characteristics, attitudes and behaviour of private households and individuals, as well as on the physical condition of Scotland's homes, and every year a random sample of addresses in Scotland is invited to take part, to make sure the results are representative of everyone in Scotland, not just certain groups of people²⁶. Its topics include housing, neighbourhoods and finances, and annual methodology and fieldwork outcomes reports are published alongside²⁶.

The targets differ from England and Wales in both level and mechanism. Scotland's stated trajectory is a minimum standard equivalent to EPC C by 2028 where technically feasible and cost-effective²⁰, earlier than the 2030 date proposed for England and Wales⁴, and the reformed Scottish EPC will use a Heat Retention Rating rather than the single efficiency score, with the private rented standard consulted on using that metric and now under analysis²¹. Earlier Scottish consultations set out a stepped path: all dwellings achieving an EPC of E by 31 March 2022, and an EPC of at least D by 31 March 2025¹⁴. The modelling behind those steps gives a sense of the costs involved: an average EPC cost of £70 was used, with total upgrade costs of £33.2m, or £1,110 per dwelling, to raise all stock to EPC E, and a net present value after in-use factors of £155.6m, or £5,190 per dwelling¹⁴.

Scotland also offers a funding instrument England and Wales do not: the Private Rented Sector Landlord Loan Scheme provides private registered landlords with interest-free and low-interest loan funding to improve the energy efficiency of their properties and install clean heating systems²⁷. Since 2020 the scheme has supported landlords to install over 300 energy efficiency and 34 renewables or clean heat measures²⁸, and the 2025 progress report records over 350 energy efficiency and clean heating or renewable measures installed under the scheme²⁷. Landlords elsewhere in the UK can check what funding exists on our page on landlord funding for energy upgrades.

The effect on a household's self reliance

For a private tenant, energy independence is largely borrowed. The fabric of the home, its insulation, heating system and glazing, belongs to someone else, and so does the decision to improve it. The EPC band on the register is the single strongest signal a prospective tenant can read before signing, and the survey evidence says the average private rented home sits below the owner-occupied average and far below the social sector². The fuel poverty profile confirms the consequence: renters are over-represented among fuel poor households¹⁵.

The limits are as real as the rights. A tenant cannot install solar panels, replace a boiler or insulate a wall without the landlord's consent, and the legal minimum the landlord must meet is only band E³. The proposed rise to EPC C by 2030 in England and Wales⁴, and Scotland's 2028 standard now under analysis²¹, would shift that floor, but neither is yet in force. What a tenant can do is read the register, check the exemptions record, and use the tenancy's own remedies for cold, damp and disrepair; what a landlord can do is use the loan support available in Scotland²⁷ and the report of cost effective measures that comes with each certificate. The household's independence in this tenure is therefore a negotiated thing: stronger where the law sets a floor, weaker wherever the floor stops.