United Utilities customer participation in the water utility of the future

TL;DR: United Utilities is deploying 900,000 smart meters, digital engagement tools and a £525 million affordability package so that seven million customers can actively manage water use, reduce leakage on their properties, and absorb bill increases while supporting long-term demand and resilience targets.

In the traditional utility model, customers were treated as passive bill-payers rather than active stewards of regional water security. Rising demand, climate volatility and investment needs now expose households and businesses to both supply risk and bill pressure. United Utilities’ approach shows how large regulated utilities can reposition customers as informed participants in demand management, drought resilience and affordability.

Customer participation and system resilience in a regulated utility

United Utilities supplies over seven million people across North West England through interconnected surface water and groundwater sources, treatment works and distribution networks structured into four main water resource zones. In this system, household consumption and leakage at the property level directly affect deployable output, drought resilience and the scale of new supply-side investments. Smart metering, digital portals and social comparison messaging insert customers into the utility’s demand management toolkit, enabling earlier detection of customer-side leaks and shaping consumption patterns at scale.

Adoption of this participation model is being driven by overlapping regulatory and policy pressures. Ofwat’s PR24 process and the government’s Plan for Water expect companies to cut per capita consumption from around 140 litres per person per day to 122 litres by 2038 and 110 litres by mid-century, supported by a national ramp-up in smart metering. At the same time, public concern over river water quality, storm overflows and rising bills is increasing expectations that companies demonstrate both environmental improvement and fair, targeted affordability support.

Governance of this shift is anchored in the AMP8 price control, United Utilities’ Water Resources Management Plan and company-level affordability strategies agreed with regulators. Service standards now link demand reduction, leakage and support for vulnerable customers to performance commitments, with trade-offs between capital investment, carbon, construction disruption and headroom managed through Ofwat’s outcomes framework and the Environment Agency’s environmental constraints. Within this framework, customer participation is treated as an asset class that can defer or resize more carbon-intensive supply schemes if sustained behavioural savings are achieved.

How United Utilities sequences smart metering and affordability in AMP8

In AMP8, United Utilities plans to invest in smart metering, leakage reduction and customer support as an integrated programme spanning 2025 to 2030. The company has earmarked investment to install around 900,000 smart meters for households and businesses, complementing earlier pilots and focusing on areas with higher demand pressure and greater leakage returns. This sits alongside broader enhancement schemes for wastewater, storm overflows and nature-based solutions, but the metering programme is the primary mechanism for scaling customer participation in demand management.

Implementation sequences smart meter rollout with digital engagement and affordability measures. Automated Metering Infrastructure feeds near-real-time usage data into platforms such as the Get Water Fit portal, enabling customers to track consumption, receive targeted water-saving advice and compare their performance with similar households, which reinforces social norms around efficient use. In parallel, the company’s affordability strategy commits £525 million in direct support, expanding social tariffs and assistance schemes and offering a Lowest Bill Guarantee so customers can trial metering for two years and revert if their bills would otherwise increase, mitigating perceived risk and supporting uptake.

United Utilities plans to provide £525 million of affordability support in AMP8, helping over one in six customers manage water bills while the company rolls out smart metering and wider resilience investments to 2030.

Take-Out

United Utilities’ approach shows how large regulated water companies can treat customer participation, smart metering and affordability as a single resilience lever rather than separate initiatives. For other utilities, the lesson is that demand reduction targets and tariff reform gain legitimacy when households see transparent data on their own use and credible protections against bill shocks.

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Analysis by Our Future Water Intelligence • Robert C. Brears