The government has committed £15 billion to upgrading British homes by 2030, but most of the talk about the Warm Homes Plan is aimed at homeowners chasing grants — not the people who’ll actually fit the work.

So if you run a heating and plumbing business, here’s everything you need to know about the Warm Homes Plan: What the money pays for, who’s allowed to deliver the work, and how to position your business so it benefits you as well as customers.

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Key takeaways

£15 billion marked for upgrading up to 5 million homes by 2030 — mostly insulation, heat pumps and solar, not gas boilers.
You'll need certification — TrustMark registration, PAS 2030, and MCS certification for heat pumps.
Councils control the pipeline. Much of the funded work goes to approved installers on local panels.
Gas isn't going anywhere yet — this is just another opportunity to diversify.

What the Warm Homes Plan actually is

The Warm Homes Plan is the government’s home energy upgrade programme, backed by £13.2 billion over the current spending period and up to £15 billion across the Parliament. The aim is to upgrade up to five million homes, lift up to a million families out of fuel poverty, and support up to 180,000 jobs by 2030.

It pulls the old patchwork of schemes into something more joined-up. The Great British Insulation Scheme closed at the end of March 2026, and there’s no successor planned after the Energy Company Obligation (ECO4) ends in December. In their place sits a single, centrally backed plan covering insulation, low-carbon heat, and the finance to pay for it.

For the trade, the headline isn’t the politics. It’s the volume of work being pushed into the market over the next five years, and the rules that decide who gets to do it.

What work the money pays for

The plan funds the full retrofit picture rather than one product. That means insulation — cavity, loft, and solid wall — alongside air source heat pumps, solar panels, and battery storage.

A big chunk of the household-facing money flows through the Warm Homes: Local Grant, which covers upgrades for lower-income homes through local councils. Councils administer it locally, which matters for how you get the work (more on that below).

For heating engineers specifically, the part to watch is the shift in the install mix. Boiler swaps aren’t disappearing overnight, but there is a push towards heat pumps and the fabric work that goes with them. That’s the demand the plan creates — and the work plenty of gas engineers are already moving towards. If you’ve weighed up whether heat pump installation is worth it, the Warm Homes Plan is the reason that question keeps coming up.

Who’s allowed to deliver the work

To deliver Warm Homes Plan and grant-funded work, you generally need to be registered with TrustMark and certified to PAS 2030, the standard that governs how retrofit measures are installed. For heat pumps specifically, you also need MCS certification — without it, the household can’t claim the grant against your work.

That’s a real barrier, but it’s also the point. The certification keeps the work with installers who’ve put the time in, which protects your margins from being undercut by anyone with a van. If you’re not certified yet, the route in is worth understanding now rather than when the pipeline is already full. We’ve covered the full path in our guide on how to become a heat pump installer.

Getting onto a council’s installer panel

Because the Local Grant is run through councils, much of the funded work is delivered by approved installers on local panels — often only three to five firms per area. Get on a panel and you’re in line for a steady feed of jobs.

The Boiler Upgrade Scheme runs alongside it

You don’t have to wait for the wider plan to mature to start taking on funded work. The Boiler Upgrade Scheme is live now and offers a £7,500 grant towards an air source heat pump, claimed through MCS-certified installers. It’s backed by £2.7 billion through to 2030, so it isn’t going anywhere soon.

Catch up on the latest Boiler Upgrade Scheme changes in our 2026 guide.

How to position your business for the pipeline

The heating businesses that win here won’t necessarily be the biggest. They’ll be the ones that sort three things early.

First, certification. Decide whether you’re getting MCS, TrustMark, and PAS 2030 accredited yourself, or partnering with a business that already holds them.

Second, lead flow. Grant-funded work brings enquiries with it, but you still have to win them. Getting your name in front of the right households — and handling enquiries quickly when they come — is what turns the scheme into actual jobs. Our guide on getting more heat pump leads is a good place to start.

Third, the admin. Retrofit and grant work comes with more paperwork than a straight boiler swap — eligibility checks, scheme documentation, MCS certificates, and sign-offs that have to be right. Add more jobs across more engineers and the coordination gets heavier fast. This is where the right systems earn their keep. Gas Engineer Software keeps your job scheduling and team coordination in one place, and handles your records and certificates digitally so the documentation side doesn’t become the thing that slows you down.

What it means for your gas work

There are millions of boilers out there that still need servicing, repairing, and replacing, and that work isn’t going anywhere for years yet. Gas safety checks and breakdowns will keep your diary full regardless of what the install market does.

What the Warm Homes Plan does is change the shape of new installs over the next five years, and reward the businesses that diversify early. The Warm Homes Plan is one of several policy shifts reshaping the trade right now — the Small Business Protections Bill is another worth having on your radar.