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The most concentrated urban housing market outside London, wrapped around some of England's most rural counties. Birmingham alone holds more than 420,000 households, more than any other council in the UK, and its interwar semis are the region's biggest single retrofit opportunity.
Households: DESNZ estimates for 2024. Rating bands: ONS, 2024. Housing stock: EPC register to 9 September 2026. Solar: DESNZ, 2024.
Median rating
68 points
Band spread
England and Wales average
Median from the EPC register, bands from ONS.
Homes
2,430,000
Households in 2024, DESNZ estimate
Band C or better
45.3%
England and Wales average 48.5%
Solar panels
520
Installations per 10,000 homes, 2024
Households are DESNZ estimates, band shares are ONS figures for homes with a certificate, and solar is DESNZ deployment.
The housing
Age decides what the walls are made of, type decides what you can do to them, and the heating fuel decides whether a heat pump saves money or merely moves the emissions. Everything else follows from these three.
Share of homes by construction period.
Anything built before 1930 is almost certainly solid walled. Anything after 1990 has insulation in the cavity as built.
Share of homes by property type.
Flats are the hardest to improve: no roof of your own, nowhere for a cylinder, and a freeholder in the way.
Share of homes by built form.
Every shared wall is one that loses no heat, which is why a mid-terrace needs a smaller heat pump than a detached house of the same floor area.
Share of homes by main heating fuel.
Off-grid homes on oil or LPG pay the most per unit of heat, and gain the most from changing the system.
Share of homes by tenure, as the certificate recorded it.
Owners decide for themselves; tenants need a landlord to agree, and social landlords upgrade in whole estates. 20% of certificates don't say, and are left out.
Share of homes by wall construction and insulation.
An empty cavity is the cheapest big fix in the country. A solid wall can only be insulated inside or out, at many times the price.
Share of homes by roof, and loft insulation depth.
Current guidance is 270 mm in a loft. Anything under 100 mm is worth topping up before anything else.
From the EPC register to 9 September 2026: 1,924,261 homes with a certificate, each counted once from its latest. Homes that have never had one aren't included, and unknowns are left out of the shares.
Ratings
The median home here scores 68, which is band D. On the same certificates, the median potential score reaches band B — and that potential assumes every recommendation is carried out.
Median today
Median potential
England and Wales average 48.5%
Bars are this area. The vertical rule on each track is the England and Wales average for that band.
England and Wales average
A bar to the right of the rule means this area has more of its homes in that band than the country as a whole.
Band shares are ONS figures for 2024, over homes with a certificate. The median score is from the EPC register.
What needs doing
Every certificate records what the assessor found and lists the improvements that would raise the rating. Added up, they show where the easy work is still undone.
Cavity walls still empty
22.5%
Against 25.9% across England and Wales
Lofts under 100 mm
22.3%
Against 22.1% across England and Wales
Any single glazing
9.1%
Against 10.7% across England and Wales
Off the gas grid
14.6%
Against 16.1% across England and Wales
Share of homes whose latest certificate recommends each measure.
A certificate recommends what would raise its rating, which isn't always what would save the most. Older certificates recommend by older rules.
Heating, hot water and lighting
£1,020a year, on average
The certificate's own estimate, at standard occupancy and at the fuel prices its method used when it was lodged, not today's prices or anyone's actual bill.
From the EPC register to 9 September 2026, each home's latest certificate. Walls, lofts and glazing are as the assessor found or assumed them, so work done since a home's last certificate doesn't show.
What people fit
Homes per 10,000 with each measure fitted so far, against the England and Wales figure for the same measure. The gap is rarely about the weather and usually about tenure, roof ownership and how generous the local grant route is.
Per 10,000 homes.
Both ends of each row are on the same scale, so the length of the connector is the size of the gap.
117per 10,000
Ranked 8 of 14 areas. The England and Wales figure is 160.
520per 10,000
Ranked 10 of 14 areas. The England and Wales figure is 592.
Heat pumps: homes whose certificate names a heat pump as the main heating, per 10,000 homes with a certificate.
Solar panels: solar installations of every size in 2024 (DESNZ), per 10,000 households. A few are on businesses, not homes. EPC certificates record panels on only 1.6% of homes, because most were lodged before the panels went up.
Costs
These are national figures, not the West Midlands ones. Nothing published gives installed cost by area, so we don't invent a local premium: labour, access, parking and travel do move the price, and we will show by how much when quote data can.
| Measure | Typical cost | Where it comes from |
|---|---|---|
| Air source heat pump | £11,128–£15,627 | Boiler Upgrade Scheme, middle half of jobs |
| Solar panels | £8,000–£10,000 | EPC method |
| Cavity wall insulation | £900–£1,500 | EPC method |
| Solid wall insulation | £7,500–£11,000 | EPC method |
| New gas boiler | £2,200–£3,500 | EPC method |
| Loft insulation | £900–£1,200 | EPC method |
The EPC method's figure is the range the middle recommendation was given — the same for every home, so a guide rather than a quote. The heat pump figure is what Boiler Upgrade Scheme installers reported, with the grant still in it.
Grants
5 schemes reach this area. Which of them you qualify for turns on the household and the property, not on the postcode alone.
£7,500
A fixed grant off a heat pump, claimed by your installer and taken off the quote.
How it worksWhole-house, fully funded
Supplier-funded whole-house retrofits for low-income households in the worst homes.
How it worksOne measure, mostly funded
Single insulation measures for lower council tax bands, with no benefits test.
How it worksUp to £30,000
Council-run retrofits for low-income households — but only in participating areas.
How it works20% off labour and materials
Not a grant — a tax relief that quietly takes a fifth off most upgrade quotes.
How it works374 homes upgraded so far with 662 measures, 15 per 100,000 households. 22% of them got low carbon heating.
DESNZ, Warm Homes: Local Grant official statistics.
Councils
Approval rates are the authority's own record, across every kind of application. They vary far more within a region than between regions.
| Authority | Homes | Median | Approval rate | Decided in time | Conservation areas |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Solihull | 89,500 | D | 93.6% | 86.8% | |
| Wolverhampton | 105,100 | D | 89.1% | 98.5% | |
| Shropshire | 139,600 | D | 86.9% | 91.3% | |
| Coventry | 134,100 | D | 83.6% | 99.3% | |
| Birmingham | 423,500 | D | 82.2% | 76.4% |
5,014 householder decisions in the year ending March 2026, 86% approved, and 86.4% decided inside the eight-week target. Most domestic work needs no application at all.
Homes are DESNZ household estimates, median bands come from the EPC register, and approval rates and decision speed are MHCLG's planning statistics — every kind of application, not only domestic work, and only the work that needed one. Conservation areas are still placeholders.
In short
Birmingham's interwar semis are the largest single block of cavity-walled band D housing in the country.
Shropshire's 128 conservation areas and heavy listed-building coverage make it one of England's hardest places to fit external insulation.
The region's grant take-up runs below its need, which is a distribution problem rather than an eligibility one.
Nearby
Post-war semis and a genuine off-grid tail in rural Lincolnshire.
See the areaMost terraced stock in England, and the largest share of ECO4 work.
See the areaOldest stock in the UK, solid walls everywhere, plus Nest on top of the GB schemes.
See the areaArea figures are averages over hundreds of thousands of homes. They tell you what is likely, not what is true of your house — which is what the postcode check is for.
An area average is a starting point. A postcode gets the property's own record: its age, construction, current rating and what it could reach.