New figures from an insurance provider show 3.38 million PRS homes fall short of the proposed minimum EPC C standard required under Energy Secretary Ed Miliband’s Warm Homes Plan.
The analysis highlights a stark regional divide. While the average upgrade cost sits at £7,633, landlords in rural and northern areas face far steeper bills, with some properties requiring up to £12,000 of work to comply.
Landlords in some of the poorest-performing regions face upgrade bills that far exceed what their properties earn in rent. The insurer’s analysis uses a “repair-to-rent ratio” to show how sharply costs diverge across the country. In Powys, where 83% of rental homes fail to meet proposed EPC standards, the average retrofit bill of £10,759 compares with annual rents of £7,248, meaning upgrades amount to 148% of a full year’s income.
Several other areas show similarly punishing ratios.
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Hartlepool — 138%
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Isle of Anglesey — 135%
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Gwynedd — 131%
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Northumberland — 129%
At the opposite end of the spectrum, high-rent London boroughs face a far lighter burden. In Kensington and Chelsea, landlords would need to spend only 20% of annual rental income to meet EPC C. Westminster follows at 22%, with Islington, Hammersmith and Fulham, and Camden all requiring less than 30%.
The latest findings land against a backdrop of earlier criticism from the Regulatory Policy Committee, which in February said the government’s impact assessment for the Decent Homes Standard was not robust enough to support policy decisions. That intervention underscored long-standing concerns about how new property standards would be implemented and funded.
Fresh compliance data now highlights how uneven progress already is. Urban boroughs dominate the top of the table, with Tower Hamlets recording 66% of homes at EPC C or above. Other high-performing areas include parts of West Northamptonshire, where a majority of properties already meet the proposed threshold.
By contrast, many rural and coastal regions remain far behind, reinforcing the widening gap between areas with strong rental markets and those where landlords face higher upgrade costs and lower returns.
A cluster of rural and coastal areas now sits at the extreme end of the energy-efficiency challenge, with the Isles of Scilly showing 70% of rental homes needing a full “deep retrofit” to reach EPC C. The Isle of Anglesey follows at 60%, alongside Ryedale at 57%, Eden at 56%, and Powys at 52%, underscoring how heavily the burden falls on low-income, low-yield markets.
At the same time, demand for bridging finance is climbing as landlords turn to short-term borrowing to cover retrofit work, adding another layer of financial strain to a sector already grappling with rising costs and tighter regulation.
Final decisions on the 2030 EPC requirements are expected later this year, leaving landlords waiting for clarity on the scale of the upgrades they will ultimately be required to deliver.