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Transparent by design

Data sources, coverage and methodology

EPCScore combines a detailed area-analysis dataset, current quarterly EPC tables, UK House Price Index context and England's sub-regional fuel-poverty estimates. We keep every source and limitation explicit because they answer different questions.

Detailed area analysis

Domestic EPC records from 2020–2025

Certificates
9,924,950
Property references
9,461,776

Used for postcode-district, county, constituency and detailed council pages: score, potential score, property type, heating fuel, certificate-estimated costs, emissions, floor area and trend.

Current official benchmark

MHCLG live tables through 30 June 2026

Domestic lodgements
29,758,272
Latest quarter
2026 Q2

Used for the current national distribution and local-authority C+ and E–G comparisons. The tables cover domestic certificate lodgements since 2008.

Housing market context

UK HPI — May 2026

Authorities
317
Geography
England & Wales

Used only as local-authority housing-market context. EPCScore does not claim that energy ratings caused local price levels or changes.

Affordability context

Fuel poverty — 2024

Authorities
296
Coverage
England only

Modelled LILEE estimates provide broad household energy-affordability context for English councils and constituencies.

Primary public sources

The underlying records and official tables come from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government's Energy Performance of Buildings Register for England and Wales.

Certificates are not the same as homes

A property can have several certificates over time. The official figure of 29,758,272 is a count of domestic EPC lodgements, not a claim that the dataset contains that many unique properties.

For the detailed 2020–2025 analysis, EPCScore uses the property reference available in the source data to report 9,461,776 distinct references alongside 9,924,950 certificates. We display both numbers rather than labelling certificates as properties.

Coverage limitations

The register is not a census of the housing stock. An EPC is generally triggered when a building is constructed, sold or let. Homes that have not experienced a trigger may be absent, and some certificate holders can opt out of disclosure.

Official MHCLG guidance also notes that the data should not be treated as a true representation of every building. Area results describe disclosed certificates in the dataset and can be affected by the mix of sales, lettings and new construction.

How records are grouped

  • Postcode district: the outward part of the postcode, such as SW1A. A full postcode entered into search is reduced to this district; no address-level result is shown.
  • Local authority: grouped using the authority identifiers supplied or mapped in the source data. Current EPC tables and UK HPI figures are joined by ONS code where a live page exists.
  • County and constituency: aggregated from the geographic mappings in the processing pipeline.

How figures are calculated

Average scores, costs, emissions and floor areas are arithmetic means across usable records in the selected area and period. Band shares divide the count in each recorded band by the total with a usable rating. Potential values aggregate the potential fields recorded on certificates.

Certificate-estimated costs use standardised assumptions and methodology prices from the date of assessment. We expose them as comparative EPC figures, not live tariffs or household bill forecasts.

UK HPI figures describe the wider local housing market and are provisional. They are shown for decision context only; EPCScore does not calculate or assert a causal relationship between ratings and prices.

Fuel-poverty figures are modelled sub-regional estimates for England. They should be used to understand broad patterns, not to identify individual households or as evidence that EPC ratings caused energy affordability outcomes.

Ranking safeguards

Current council rankings use MHCLG live-table data and exclude unmapped or very small samples. Postcode examples require a minimum sample. Rankings compare the available certificate population, not every dwelling or the quality of a council's policies.

Update policy

The current official layer is generated from the latest D1 and D3 live tables. Separate updaters discover the newest available UK HPI and sub-regional fuel-poverty releases. Every generated dataset records source URLs and retrieval timestamps. The detailed postcode layer is labelled 2020–2025 until a new bulk-data run is completed and verified.

Licence and attribution

Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0 ↗. Address-related source fields may also be subject to Royal Mail and Ordnance Survey rights described by the provider.

EPCScore is an independent product and is not affiliated with HM Government, MHCLG or the official register.