36% Water bill increase by 2030 in UK

18 March 2026 | W.E.U Admin | News

TAGS: Inflation, Water Crisis, Cost of Living

Permission given for Water Bills to go up again!

From April, household water bills across England will rise again by an average of 5.4%, pushing the typical annual bill to £639. That is another above-inflation hike, landing barely a year after last April’s brutal increase when bills jumped by more than £120 for many families.

Let’s be absolutely clear about what this is: Working people across England are being forced to pay for decades of failure.

Water companies claim the rises are needed for “investment”. Ofwat has handed the industry permission to raise bills by 36% between 2025 and 2030, allowing firms to charge customers £104 billion over five years. Much of that pain has already been front-loaded onto hard working households. Like the rising costs seen in building and supply chains, these utility hikes are further squeezing the domestic budgets of workers.

[Image of a bar chart showing the projected 36% increase in average household water bills in England from 2025 to 2030]

And what do we have to show for it?

Rivers and seas still polluted with sewage
Communities flooded year after year
Hosepipe bans alongside leaking pipes
Customer complaints up 50%
A postcode lottery for bill support
Directors paid outrageous high salaries, regardless of failure

This is not an industry struggling to cope. This is an industry that has been allowed to fail by British governments who just see the taxpayer in England as a cash cow.

For decades, water companies have prioritised dividends, debt-fuelled financial engineering and executive pay over basic maintenance. Pipes have been left to rot. Treatment works have been neglected. Now, after years of underinvestment, the bill is dumped squarely on the taxpaying public across England.

Campaigners and the people of England are right to be furious. The Workers of England Union supports that River Action are taking the government to court, arguing these price rises were not properly approved. Consumer groups warn that poorer households face a support system riddled with inequality. Even with social tariffs, millions will still struggle.

Yet water executives continue to talk about “long-term plans” while customers are told to tighten their belts. This is not reform, this is not accountability, this is privatised failure, publicly funded.

The Workers of England Union has warned about this outcome for years. The flooding, the shortages, the sewage, the spiralling bills, none of this is new.

The WEU has always been clear, water is not a luxury, it is not a speculative asset. It is a public necessity. Rising bills, collapsing trust, environmental damage and corporate impunity all point to the same conclusion, the current system does not work.

Stephen Morris, General Secretary of the Workers of England Union, said:

“We have been warning for years that the privatised water model is broken. Communities flood, rivers are poisoned, infrastructure crumbles, yet executives are rewarded and households are hit again and again. Water companies are failing the public, and now working people across England are being forced to pay for that failure. Urgent reform is not optional anymore, it is urgently needed.”

“What is becoming clearer, is the scale of public anger and the sheer audacity of asking households to pay even more. Working people across England are done paying for failure.”