How much does a heat pump cost to install in 2026

A typical air source heat pump installation in the UK costs about £10,000 to £15,000 before support, and the median cost through the Boiler Upgrade Scheme was about £13,000 in 2025/26. The £7,500 grant cuts that to about £5,500 out of pocket for most eligible homes in England and Wales. Ground source systems cost far more, typically £25,000 or above before the grant. Quotes vary widely from home to home, so the range matters more than any single figure.

What an air source installation typically costs

The most reliable numbers come from the Boiler Upgrade Scheme itself, because every grant-funded installation reports its cost. Nesta's analysis of the official scheme data puts the median air source installation at £13,041 in 2025/26, marginally up on £12,973 the year before, and down about 11% in real terms since the scheme launched in 2022. That figure includes the unit itself, installer fees and associated home upgrade costs, and air source machines make up about 98% of scheme installations. The government publishes the underlying data in its monthly Boiler Upgrade Scheme statistics.

Around that median, most quotes for a typical 3-bed home land between about £10,000 and £15,000 before the grant. A small, simple property with radiators that already suit low-temperature heating can come in under £10,000. A large detached home that needs a bigger unit, a new cylinder and several radiator swaps can go well past £15,000. Our own calculator assumes about £9,750 for a small 4 kW system, rising to about £14,000 at 10 kW, which sits inside that observed range.

Treat any single national average with care. It blends easy jobs with hard ones, and your home is only ever one of the two.

The £7,500 Boiler Upgrade Scheme

The Boiler Upgrade Scheme is a government grant for replacing fossil fuel heating in England and Wales. The current amounts are £7,500 towards an air source heat pump, £7,500 towards a ground source heat pump, £5,000 towards a biomass boiler and £2,500 towards an air-to-air heat pump, with one grant per property.

The eligibility rules are broad. You must own the property, which includes rented-out homes, second homes and business premises, and you must be replacing a fossil fuel system such as oil, gas, LPG or direct electric heating. Most new builds and social housing are excluded. You stay eligible even if you have already had funding for insulation.

You do not apply yourself. You choose an MCS certified installer, and the installer applies on your behalf on the Ofgem website. The grant value is taken off your quotation and invoice, so you only ever pay the net price. The heat pump must be commissioned within 120 days of the application.

One change is worth knowing about. From 21 July 2026 the grant rises from £7,500 to £9,000 for eligible households heating with oil, under an uplift announced on 26 June 2026, and trade press reporting confirms LPG-heated homes qualify too. If you are off the gas grid, it may pay to time your application accordingly. Scotland and Northern Ireland run separate support schemes with their own rules.

What drives the price up or down

Two installations of the same brand of heat pump can differ by thousands of pounds. Four things explain most of the gap.

System size

A heat pump is sized to your home's heat loss. A small flat might need a 4 to 5 kW unit, a typical 3-bed semi somewhere around 6 kW, and a large detached home 10 kW or more. Our calculator uses a rough rule of one kilowatt per 2,000 kWh of annual heat demand. Bigger units cost more to buy, and they usually bring larger pipework, a bigger outdoor pad and more labour with them.

Radiators and emitters

Heat pumps run cooler than boilers, with flow temperatures around 35 to 45C, so radiators need enough surface area to give off the same warmth at a lower temperature. Many homes need several radiators upsized, and some need new pipework runs. This is a big reason the official median cost includes associated home upgrade costs, not just the unit. Underfloor heating suits a heat pump best of all, but retrofitting it is expensive and rarely essential.

Hot water cylinder

A standard air source heat pump does not do instant hot water, so most installations include a hot water cylinder. If you currently have a combi boiler and no cylinder, one has to be added, which means finding space, buying the tank and plumbing it in. Homes that already have a suitable cylinder, or space where one used to be, tend to get cheaper quotes.

Job complexity

Everything else sits under this heading: how far the outdoor unit is from the cylinder, whether the electrics need upgrading, scaffolding, controls, system cleaning and filters, and simple access. None of these items is huge on its own, but together they can move a quote by a few thousand pounds either way.

Ground source versus air source

Ground source heat pumps collect warmth from buried pipe loops or boreholes, and the ground works are what you pay for. The Energy Saving Trust estimates that buying and installing one can reach about £29,000 with a trench-based ground loop, and more if a borehole has to be drilled. Government scheme data reported by Which puts the average ground source installation at about £25,300 before the grant, against roughly £13,000 for air source.

Ground source systems typically run a little more efficiently, because the ground is warmer than the winter air. But for a typical home the extra capital, roughly £12,000 on the average figures above, takes a very long time to earn back through that efficiency edge, which is why about 98% of Boiler Upgrade Scheme installations are air source. Ground source tends to make sense for larger properties with land, or projects already digging up the garden.

Will the running cost saving pay it back?

Take the median air source installation at about £13,000, minus the £7,500 grant: about £5,500 to find yourself. Whether that pays back depends almost entirely on what you pay for electricity.

On a standard price-cap tariff, a heat pump is roughly cost-neutral against a gas boiler, saving perhaps £190 a year for a typical 3-bed semi once the gas standing charge goes. Our heat pump versus gas boiler guide walks through those numbers. At that rate the payback stretches over decades, so on money alone the standard tariff does not justify the switch.

A dedicated heat pump tariff changes the picture. With cheap-window rates around 14p to 15p per kWh, the same home heats for roughly £520 a year against a gas total of about £1,083, a saving in the region of £560 a year. Against a net cost of £5,500, that is a payback of about ten years. The heat pump tariffs guide compares the current options, and the calculator works out the saving and payback for your own home, tariff and quote.

Homes replacing oil, LPG or direct electric heating usually see bigger running cost savings than gas homes, and from 21 July 2026 many of them also get the larger £9,000 grant, so the payback there can be quicker.

How to get a fair quote

Quotes for the same house genuinely vary by thousands of pounds, so shop around.

Get at least three quotes from different MCS certified installers. Certification is not optional: the grant is only available through an MCS certified installer, and you can check any firm on the MCS site.

Insist on a room-by-room heat loss survey rather than a quote from floor area alone. Sizing from a proper survey is what protects the efficiency, and therefore the running cost, for the next couple of decades.

Ask for an itemised quote: heat pump unit, cylinder, radiator changes, labour and commissioning. Itemised quotes are easier to compare and easier to negotiate.

Be wary of outliers in both directions. A very cheap quote may hide an undersized unit or skipped radiator upgrades, and a very high one may simply be a busy firm pricing you away.

The bottom line

An air source heat pump typically costs about £10,000 to £15,000 to install in 2026, with the official scheme median around £13,000, and the £7,500 Boiler Upgrade Scheme grant brings the usual out-of-pocket cost to about £5,500 in England and Wales. Oil and LPG homes can get £9,000 from 21 July 2026. Ground source costs roughly twice as much and suits a minority of homes. Paired with a heat pump tariff, the running cost saving can repay the net cost in around a decade, though on a standard tariff it takes far longer. All figures here are estimates drawn from the sources above; your own quotes will differ, so get several.