Cost of Living in the UK (3): Utilities

Basic Services

It would be very difficult to live without them during your time in England:

• Water: The main provider is generally a local company where you live. The cost is usually an annual fixed amount, and like most other utilities in the UK, you have the option to pay the full amount in one single payment or split it through installments. If you choose to pay the full annual amount on one single payment, you generally receive a 10% discount. In my case, in Leeds, the monthly cost was 20 pounds, so consider that your amount will be around that amount. And as I previously said, the cost is usually fixed so you will avoid surprises at the end of the month.
• Electricity: There are a lot of players on the electricity so you will have several providers to choose from with different offers. For example, two of the biggest companies are Scottish Power and npower. The monthly cost will obviously depend on your consumption. But be prepared to pay no less than 60 pounds a month. Your energy consumption will depend on whether you live in a full electricity apartment or you have gas also. If you have gas, this cost will be split between gas and electricity bills. Before renting, you should also ask the landlord if the apartment has Economy 7 energy system, very common in the UK. Economy 7 energy system consists in a device installed in your flat that stores energy at night, period of the day when electricity costs are cheaper and then, the stored energy is used during the rest of the day. This system will considerably reduce your monthly bills. As a tip, don’t make the common mistake of turning off the heating system when leaving your apartment, since it is better to have it permanently running at an average level rather that turn it off and let your apartment cool down completely. When you turn it on again, the heater will spend the same power you saved, probably more. As an alternative, you can arrange a monthly average payment with your energy supplier to keep monthly bills at a fixed cost and avoid surprises. But bills are amended quarterly to reflect your actual consumption, so if you spend more than the fixed cost you arrange, your installments will be adjusted after 3 month to reflect that. On the other side, the provider will reduce the installments cost if you spend less.
• Gas: In my apartment I didn’t have gas and you will probably be in the same situation, since gas is becoming less common in the UK. In case you have gas, the providers usually are the electricity ones, and they offer comprehensive plans for both utilities in one bill. You should probably pay for gas plus electricity an average price of 80 pounds per month.
• Council Tax: It’s an annual tax you pay for services provided by the city council in your area: garbage collection, street lights, cleaning, etc. The price you pay depends on the area where you live. There are several categories (A, B, C, D, etc.) so you should ask your owner which category you are in. In my case, in Hyde Park area in Leeds (university area) I used to pay around 800 pounds annually. In London, according with some Londiners I have talked to, you will have to pay at least 1000 pounds annually. You don’t need to pay this amount in one single payment and you can pay in monthly installments. But if you pay the full amount in one single payment, you will get a discount. You can also obtain a 25% discount if you are the only resident in your department or if all residents are students.

Optional services

You can live without them if you want to save around 50 pounds a month, but is almost sure you will want to count with them:

• Phone: British people are addicted to cell/mobile phones, so it’s more important that you count with a mobile rather than a standard line telephone. For those people that live or have lived in the US, be aware that in the UK, cell phones are called mobiles. The only reason to have a residential phone line is for Internet access. Broadband Internet access via cable modem is not very common in the UK, and ADSL is the more common type of access, for which you need to have a phone line, or BT line, as they call it. BT It’s worth mentioning that BT is the traditional phone company in the UK and actually was the only one for long time. For that reason, phone lines are often better known as BT lines. But now you can choose among other providers, so when you read you need BT line, not necessarily means that needs to be provided by BT. Prices? There are many plans but the cost of a basic contract with BT costs about 11 pounds a month and includes free calls to UK’s landlines on weekends and every day after 6p.m.
• Internet: There are several providers: Virgin, Sky, BT, O2, Vodafone, etc. Virgin and Sky are the only ones that currently offer cable modem services. But not all areas are covered. Generally you can find out if your area is covered inserting your post code in the provider web page. There are plenty of offers but let’s say that for 15 pounds a month you will have a good connection and if you contract with Virgin or Sky you could get an offer that includes free cable TV channels for a given period of time. Then you will have to pay for it separately.
• Television: By default, you will have access to the public channels (BBCs and ITVs), plus additional local channels. If you want more private channels you will have to contract a TV cable provider like Virgin or Sky (the most popular). But that's not all, in England you will have to pay a TV license. That means that the public channels are not completely free, since you they are maintained with this tax. You will have to pay around 10 pounds a month if you have color TV (a little bit less if you have a black and white one, but ... who has a black and white TV in these days?). No matter if watch TV or not, the mere fact of having a TV in your apartment makes you liable to license TV tax, even if you use it only to watch DVDs movies. So if you do not intend to use a TV at all, ask your landlord to remove it from your apartment. Believe it or not, TV license payment is very well monitored by the authorities and if you don’t pay, they will knock to your door soon with evidence that you have TV and you are not paying. England is probably one of the toughest countries in pursuit of taxes and penalties for people not paying.

As a conclusion of this long entry, the best source of information about prices and offers for a particular utility can be found in any price comparison site, very common in the UK, such as moneysupermarket.com. It’s a very useful site where you can select the utility you want to compare prices and submitting your zip code, it will return several prices, offers and providers in your area, even different offers from a single provider. You can also contract some offers directly online using this web page.

Leave us a comment if you would like more information about a particular utility.

Good luck with your cost of living estimation.