Energy UK’s latest electricity switching figures show that over 370,000 (374,350) customers moved to a new supplier in January.
The figure represents a 16% decrease compared with January 2020 when 446,750 customers moved to a new supplier, but remains above the January five-year average of 360,000.
Last year, six million customers switched to a new supplier with half a million customers on average moving to a new supplier each month.
Emma Pinchbeck, Energy UK’s chief executive said:
“Even with the end of winter in sight, it’s still very much worth customers spending a few minutes to check if they’re on the best deal for them – either with their own supplier or by looking at what’s on offer in the rest of the market – as they could make significant savings on their energy bills.
“Consumers might also want to see if their new supplier is signed up to the Energy Switch Guarantee so they can feel confident that their switch will be simple, speedy and safe.
“Switching figures have become more unpredictable since the pandemic started – and January is often a slower month in terms of switching – but we are still seeing hundreds of thousands of customers taking steps to save money every month.”
Notes to editors:
- To see the latest monthly switching stats, please visit Energy UK’s website.
- From December 2020, larger suppliers in the market are British Gas, Bulb, EDF Energy, E.ON (including npower), Octopus Energy, OVO (including domestic business of SSE) and Scottish Power. This is based on Ofgem’s revised definition of classifying all suppliers with a market share of 5% or above in either fuel as larger.
- Gemserv Limited is the service company contracted by the MRA Service Company (MRASCo) to provide services in support of the MRA including the management of its governance and providing specialised expertise to MRASCo in support of the growing electricity retail market. Historical data up to August 2018 was provided by Electralink.
- The data referenced in these reports is for electricity only. These figures include both domestic (Profile Classes 1 and 2) & non-domestic customers (Profile Classes 3-8 and 0) but do not include customers transferred to another supplier as a result of the Supplier of Last Resort process (SOLR). Also, any switches between merged parties are considered as internal and are not counted in our switching statistics.
- These figures do not include internal electricity switching. Such statistics can be found on the Ofgem website.
- The Energy Switch Guarantee (ESG) is a set of 10 commitments – launched by Energy UK in 2016 – that makes switching simple, speedy and safe. The Guarantee covers nearly 80% of the retail energy market. Find out more on the ESG website.