Uswitch has identified an 18-month fixed deal from Fuse Energy priced at £1,688 a year for a typical home, £35 below the October price cap, according to data the comparison service collected on 24 September1. The cap itself rises 4% from £1,663 to £1,723 for an average household on Thursday 1 October1.
The finding sits inside a wider Uswitch analysis of 365 days of deals, covering 17 July 2024 to 16 July 2025, which compared the cheapest fixed dual-fuel tariff available each day with the prevailing Ofgem cap2. Households taking out a fixed deal were £182 better off on average than those on the cap, with the lowest saving £102 and the highest £2892. The cheapest fix sat below the cap on 341 of those 365 days, or 93.4%, but Uswitch says that once the cap is measured across four quarters, fixed deals beat it on all 365 days2. Its worked example: someone taking a £1,459 OVO Energy 1 Year Fixed Go Smart deal on 9 July 2024, when the cap was £1,568, would have saved £262 against the real £1,721 cost of the cap over 12 months2.
The 24 days when the cheapest fix exceeded the cap clustered in two volatile periods, August to September 2024 and 20 March to 25 May 2026, the latter falling within the last-12-month window; the worst day was 20 March 2026, at £1,862 against £1,7582. Uswitch attributes both to wholesale price spikes linked to conflict in the Middle East and Ukraine2. Its latest data point, 16 July 2026, put the cheapest fix at £1,453 against a cap of £1,663, a £210 saving2.
On forward prices, the two accounts differ in emphasis. Uswitch reports the October cap rising 4% and January's level predicted to rise another 9%, citing a Cornwall Insight prediction of £1,872, an 8.6% increase on the October 2026 cap of £1,723, and an average of forecasts from Cornwall Insight, British Gas, E.ON and EDF of £1,9482. The Express reports rates "forecast to jump a staggering 23% in the new year" and a third consecutive January hike1. Uswitch's own figure for the cheapest deal available at the time of its analysis was average savings of around £158 a year against the October cap2; the Express puts the Fuse Energy deal £429 below the average January forecast1.
"Over the past year, anyone taking out the cheapest fixed deal would have beaten the price cap every day of the year, by £182 on average."
Why it matters for households
The gap between the cheapest fix and the cap is the practical margin a household can hold against quarterly cap movements. A fixed deal sets unit rates and standing charges for its term, so the bill does not follow the cap when it changes; the trade-off is that leaving early can carry exit fees, and the deal is only cheaper if usage and the term match the assumptions behind the quoted figure. The £1,688 headline is for a typical home on Ofgem's Typical Domestic Consumption Values of 2,500 kWh of electricity and 9,500 kWh of gas a year, paying by Direct Debit with paperless billing2. The cap, by contrast, is not a total bill cap: it limits unit rates and standing charges for homes on standard tariffs1. For a household weighing a fix against the variable rate, the comparison is set out in fixed tariff vs staying on the price cap, and the assumptions behind the typical-household number are explained in what the price cap 'typical household' figure actually means. The wider picture on bills and self-generation is covered in energy bills and energy independence.
What happens next
The October cap takes effect on 1 October 2026 and runs to 31 December 20262. Uswitch says the 1 October meter reading deadline applies to the 15 million households on standard tariffs, and that those without a smart meter who do not submit a reading on or around that date risk having some September usage charged at the newer, more expensive rates1. The January 2027 cap level has not been announced; the figures in circulation are predictions2.