The UK Heating Market and its Boiler in 2020

The Market Researchers Building Services Research and Information Association (BSRIA) estimated that in 2014, 15% of all heating technologies sold in the UK in 2020 would be boilers. 51% for heat pumps and 18% for solar thermal products. 95% of those boilers sold will go to existing buildings (Dawson, 2014, slide 9).

Dawson further estimated that would Gas boilers account for 79.7% of all the heat-generating products in the existing housing stock (a total of 28.45 million dwellings by 2020) (ibid. slide 10). The market halved for solar thermal heating products between 2011 and 2013 (slide 13). This was partly as a consequence of the removal of support for renewable heating sources from the central government (Community Energy England, 2018, p. 10).

Their report (Dawson, 2014) further made the prediction that new system types for heating residential family homes were coming onto the market including:

Gas condensing boiler + Solar thermal system + Heat Recovery Ventilation (HRV)
Gas or electric heat pump + Heat Recovery Ventilation (HRV)
Electric heat pump + Solar thermal systems + Heat Recovery Ventilation (HRV)

Existing family homes, the report may have a mix of the following heating systems:

Gas condensing boiler + quick recovery cylinder
Gas condensing boiler + Solar thermal system
Condenser boiler + A/W electric HP (Hybrid heat pump)

(ibid. 11)

Having an up-to-date image on this home appliance market or home appliance insurance market is inevitably subject to some delay as data is compiled and publications await dissemination. We can, however, track some of the most appraised boilers in the UK (including Northern Ireland, excluding the Republic of Ireland) by their market share and some aggregations of user reviews. There are longstanding concerns about review sites being populated with the partiality of paid-for or sponsored user reviews. These issues also arise in boiler cover comparison websites Aggregate scores from customer reviews as well as the frequency of reviews will be included – however, these problems may make assessing customer reviews as transparent indicators of popularity flawed.

During research for this paper, data on radiator & boiler market share in the UK existed but is restricted (IBIS, 2020). Figures are complicated, too, because the UK has an open market where boilers, for example, from Asia manufacturers can be imported and sold without the need to publish information publicly. Asian manufacturers include LG, Samsung, Haier Midea, Daikin, Mitsubishi Electric, Panasonic, Sanyo, Toshiba, Hitachi, and Fujitsu. This report uses data from the consumer group Which’s ‘Best Buy’ (Carmichael, 2018).

For eight years or more (2010-2018) as Which’s ‘Best Buy’, the Worcester Bosch boiler is likely still the UK’s current market leader. In 2017, sales of 490,000 boilers were reported in the UK. A Which? Trusted Trader heating engineer attributed the success to a number of areas:

“It’s a first-class product and a first-class service all round. It’s aftersales is second to none, and it has a fantastic ethos for customer relations and service.”

All Worcester Bosch boilers come with a 10 or 12-year warranty.

Most retail between £1000-£2000.

An average 2 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms semi-detached home will be adequately supported by the Greenstar 12ri and 15ri models as recommended by the Worcester Bosch website.