Five boroughs against England and Wales
| Measure | Five boroughs | Share | England and Wales |
|---|---|---|---|
| Households, 2021 | 469,363 | - | 24,783,199 |
| Mains gas alone | 394,675 | 84.1% | 73.8% |
| Electric alone | 21,769 | 4.6% | 8.5% |
| Oil or LPG alone | 3,131 | 0.7% | 4.5% |
| Heat network alone | 1,929 | 0.4% | 0.9% |
| Semi-detached | 202,104 | 43.1% | 31.5% |
| Terraced | 118,628 | 25.3% | 23.2% |
| Detached | 79,326 | 16.9% | 23.2% |
| Purpose-built flats | 50,855 | 10.8% | 16.7% |
| Owned | 300,280 | 64.0% | 61.6% |
| Social rent | 86,099 | 18.3% | 17.1% |
| Private rent | 79,291 | 16.9% | 20.3% |
| BUS heat pumps per 1,000 households | 719 | 1.5 | 3.9 |
Each borough in full
| Borough | Households | Gas alone | Electric alone | No gas meter | Semi | Terraced | Owned | Social rent | BUS paid | Listed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wirral | 143,253 | 84.3% | 4.8% | 4.88% | 41.6% | 23.5% | 65.0% | 15.4% | 257 | 736 |
| Sefton | 123,075 | 83.6% | 5.4% | 5.62% | 46.1% | 18.4% | 66.6% | 14.4% | 185 | 568 |
| St Helens | 81,011 | 84.9% | 3.7% | 2.96% | 47.0% | 28.3% | 64.2% | 19.7% | 118 | 151 |
| Knowsley | 66,073 | 83.4% | 4.2% | 2.21% | 43.1% | 31.5% | 59.5% | 25.3% | 75 | 105 |
| Halton | 55,951 | 84.3% | 4.5% | 3.35% | 34.5% | 33.4% | 60.5% | 24.3% | 84 | 129 |
| Liverpool (ref.) | 207,491 | 77.8% | 9.8% | 15.65% | 30.7% | 37.9% | 46.8% | 26.4% | 184 | 1,569 |
Definitions
- Households
- Counted on census day, 21 March 2021. The base for every percentage except the off-gas share.
- Gas alone, electric alone, oil or LPG alone, heat network alone
- Households whose central heating uses only that one type. Households with a mix of types are left out of these columns.
- No gas meter
- The government's estimate, for 2024, of the share of domestic properties with no gas meter, built from meter records rather than the census.
- Semi, terraced, detached, purpose-built flats
- The type of building the household lived in. Flats in converted houses or above shops are not in the flats column.
- Owned, social rent, private rent
- Owned means outright or with a mortgage or loan. Social rent is from a council or housing association. Private rent covers private landlords, letting agencies and other private lettings.
- BUS paid
- Boiler Upgrade Scheme vouchers paid for the borough between May 2022 and September 2026. Heat pumps funded in other ways are not included.
- Listed
- Entries in the national planning dataset's listed-building list for the borough, read on 3 November 2026.
Four things the numbers say
Gas dominates. 84.1% of households used mains gas alone, about ten points above England and Wales, and the share varies by less than two points across the five.
Semis are the norm. 43.1% of households live in semi-detached houses, well above the national 31.5%, so the typical heat pump job here is a gas-heated semi.
Tenure splits the boroughs. Sefton and Wirral have the most owner-occupiers; Knowsley and Halton have about a quarter of households in social housing.
Grants trail the country. From 1.1 heat pumps per 1,000 households in Knowsley to 1.8 in Wirral, every borough is well under the national rate of about 3.9.
When each figure was read
The census is from March 2021. The off-gas estimates are the 2024 edition, published roughly yearly. The Boiler Upgrade Scheme statistics are monthly; these run to September 2026. The listed-building counts and the council pages were read on 3 November 2026. The sources page links to every dataset, and if a figure here disagrees with its source, the source is right.
Liverpool as a reference
Liverpool sits in the tables only to show how different the city is from the boroughs around it. Its homes are more often terraced, rented and electrically heated, its off-gas share is several times higher, and its grant rate is lower still. Those differences are why this site treats the five boroughs as their own group rather than as suburbs of the city. Liverpool's own figures are set out in full by sources covering the city itself.