The Water Efficiency Lab (WEL) is a challenge-led competition from Ofwat to attract innovative solutions to specific water efficiency challenges and unlock progress on water efficient technology, processes and approaches.
Each competition of the WEL will follow a different theme. Find information about each theme on this page, as the themes are announced.
The Water Efficiency Lab (WEL) takes a theme-based approach for each competition, which is designed to target funding towards the key challenges and most critical barriers to water efficiency. By focusing attention on a specific theme, innovators from within and outside the water industry can direct their efforts on solving the most pressing challenges, with the ultimate goal of achieving a sustained reduction in water demand.
The Challenge Statement for each competition communicates to potential innovators the call to action for that theme. We are open to solutions that can address the Challenge Statement in different ways. This gives innovators the freedom to take diverse approaches that create diverse and impactful solutions.
The WEL themes are chosen after conducting stakeholder engagement within and outside the sector, and with input from the Water Efficiency Fund Advisory Panel. The Water Efficiency Fund Advisory Panel provides independent expert advice to support the delivery of the Water Efficiency Fund, ensuring it is informed by relevant expertise and joined up across policy, innovation and behaviour change. It is a small, diverse group of specialists from England and Wales who provide voluntary advice and challenge, and is advisory only—it does not make funding decisions.
Themes for future WEL competitions have not yet been confirmed.
The second competition of the WEL will launch on 3 August 2026 and will focus on Reducing customer-side leakage.
Winners will receive a share of up to £5 million. Full details about WEL 2 will be available from 3 August 2026. Sign up to our newsletter to receive updates about the Water Efficiency Lab.
England faces a water shortfall with an estimated deficit of nearly 5 billion litres per day in England by 2055*. To meet this deficit, the Environment Agency is mandating a strategic goal that almost two-thirds of the required capacity must come from reductions in demand, equating to reducing the average water use per person from 144 litres per day to 122 litres per day by 2037/38 and ultimately to 110 litres per day by 2050.
In Wales, climate change means that the country faces a significant water management challenge, with an increase in demand projected to grow sharply by 2055 if action isn’t taken. Reductions in water consumption and leakage are expected by Welsh Government to help address these issues.
Reducing demand for water is being addressed through multiple, simultaneous approaches. For example:
While water companies in England and Wales have cut leakage on their networks by 40% since the mid-1990s, it is estimated that around 10% of homes and 25% of businesses could have internal leaks. This includes leaks on customers’ pipework, dripping taps or leaking toilets.
The ability to find and fix leaks is essential to achieving water resilience and secure water supplies for all customers, but there are also tangible benefits for the individual customer. By proactively identifying and fixing leaks, customers are able to reduce their water bills and minimise the risk of costly property damage and unexpected repair bills, also providing greater peace of mind.
Many water customers in England and Wales – household and non-household customers – have experienced a leak, but many are undetected or unaddressed, which leads to significant waste, damage and cost. For example, research shows that:
The theme for WEL 2 will focus on reducing customer-side leakage. This is any leak from water pipes or fittings that the customer is responsible for, including internal plumbing (toilets, taps, valves) and external supply pipes within property boundaries.
We are seeking innovations that:
WEL 2 is calling on innovators to develop solutions that prevent, predict, pinpoint and fix leakage within household and non-household properties in England and Wales.
The first WEL competition (WEL 1) sought innovative solutions that could provide customers with granular, timely data and tailored insights to understand their specific usage patterns and empower them to act to reduce their overall consumption. WEL 1 is currently still in its assessment and judging process, and will announce its winners on 23 June 2026.
Some of the winning solutions funded in WEL 1 may support customers with leak detection within their property. For example, by utilising smart meter data to show where water is being consumed, and highlight continuous flow. Research from non-household smart meters shows that between 23-30% of all water flowing through meters at any point in time is continuous flow. While this insight is a starting point for customers, innovation can help customers to predict, prevent and fix leaks.
Water leakage is a widespread issue in the UK: over two-thirds of households have experienced a leak, yet the majority (55%) don’t know how to check toilets or tanks responsible for the largest water losses. This leaves many leaks undetected or unaddressed and contributing to significant waste, damage and cost. Stopping leaks is a challenge at every stage: whether we’re trying to prevent them from starting, identifying hidden problems before they get worse, or getting on-site to fix them quickly.
Early detection and timely resolution of leaks is the most effective way to significantly reduce water loss.
Water leaks lead to high bills, property damage and repair costs
Customer-side water leakage is any leak experienced by household customers or non-household customers, such as businesses, retail properties, or public buildings like hospitals and schools.
These leaks are mainly found by customers when the leak becomes visible and the risk of higher bills, lasting damage and personal injury becomes too great to ignore.
This delay in detection leads to substantial water loss, property damage, and higher repair costs, all of which would be avoided by a prompter response.
At present, there is limited focus on both predictive measures that could help customers identify risks early, as well as preventative measures to help avoid leaks entirely. This represents a significant gap in addressing the needs of customers, leaving them vulnerable to preventable issues.
Leak prevention is even needed on new developments
There is a significant opportunity to better prioritise leak prevention in new builds. Currently, a lack of standardised plumbing regulations and varying material durability can inadvertently build in vulnerabilities, creating maintenance challenges further down the road. In older houses, outdated plumbing systems, inaccessible fittings, poor maintenance and accumulated wear create their own set of risks.
These challenges are amplified in complex built environments, such as commercial buildings or multi-occupancy sites. Responsibility for leak detection and repair is often unclear, split between owners, freeholders, social housing providers, and facility management. The person who spots the leak, like a tenant or user, is rarely the one who can authorise repairs. This confusion, combined with the low priority given to leaks by landlords and social housing providers, means that repairs are stalled even when a leak is identified.
Even fixing the leak can be a problem
Once a leak is detected, pinpointing and fixing it is often disjointed and challenging. Customers frequently lack the tools, expertise, or support to quickly locate leaks or access reliable repair services. Repairs can be expensive. Repair bills for small businesses can often exceed their annual water bill, which reduces the incentive to act as the savings don’t justify the cost. Even when it is worth it, getting the right person aware and repairing the leak takes much longer in a non-household setting.
In addition, it can be hard to find consistently qualified plumbers, and fragmented solutions make it harder than it should be to fix leaks quickly. A more joined-up approach would help all customers get a fast, reliable resolution. These challenges are worsened by leaks in blind spots such as unmetered fire mains and continuous-flow urinals, where limited visibility or incentives allow water waste to persist.
When we struggle to prevent, predict, pinpoint and fix leaks effectively, this doesn’t just waste a precious resource; it creates unnecessary costs and creates a less resilient water system for customers, communities and the environment.
We are calling on innovators to develop solutions across the lifecycle of a leak – to prevent, predict, pinpoint and fix leakage within household and non-household properties.
We are seeking a portfolio of solutions, which may focus on prevention, predictive identification, exact location pinpointing, low-cost or uncomplicated repair, or a combination of these. Solutions should be applicable in contexts ranging from simple households to complex commercial or multi-occupancy buildings, creating a streamlined and hassle-free process for managing water leaks, including improvements to the customer journey and service experience.
More details will be available when WEL 2 launches on 3 August 2026.
England and Wales face an urgent water shortfall, a crisis recently underscored by 2025’s drought, with an estimated deficit of nearly 5 billion litres per day in England by 2055*. To meet this deficit, the Environment Agency is mandating a strategic goal that almost two-thirds of the required capacity must come from reductions in demand, equating to reducing the average water use per person from 144 litres per day to 122 litres per day by 2037/38 and ultimately to 110 litres per day by 2050.
Demand reduction is being addressed through multiple, simultaneous approaches, for example, targeted interventions by water companies, the rollout of smart water meters, new tariff trials and forthcoming policies.
While the sector drives these systemic changes, meeting the national challenge requires everyone, including households and businesses, to engage in saving water.
This is why the theme for WEL 1 is Actionable Insights – using data to inform customers and change behaviours. It’s crucial that customers are empowered to act, and the first step is providing the clear, intuitive understanding they need to engage fully.
Currently, customers often lack the granular, timely data and tailored insights they need to truly understand their specific usage patterns. This prevents them from easily identifying where water is being used or wasted, and it limits their ability to take meaningful action to reduce overall consumption.
WEL 1 is calling on innovators to develop innovative solutions which deliver tailored water usage insights that drive a reduction in water consumption for households and/or businesses in England and Wales.
*Reference: Water Efficiency Fund Decision Document (PDF)
Water customers in England and Wales – spanning both businesses and households – largely lack the granular, timely data needed to understand their specific usage patterns. This deficiency of information prevents them from effectively identifying where water is being used, wasted, or used inefficiently. Just having access to data alone is not enough; customers also need insights that help them interpret their usage, along with tailored suggestions for what they can do to reduce their usage. Ultimately, this lack of data and actionable insights prevents customers from taking meaningful actions to reduce overall water consumption across the country.
Smart meter deployment is underway with £1.7bn being invested in 10.4m new smart meters, and around half of homes and businesses expected to have a smart meter by 2030. This presents a key opportunity to accelerate and enhance the sector’s efforts to provide detailed usage information and insights.
Smart meter implementation remains unevenly distributed, which offers space to develop varied solutions, some independent from smart-meter technology. Many properties will not receive smart meters for several years, and some will remain unmetered due to shared supply pipes or access constraints. These factors limit the opportunities for water demand reduction across a portion of households.
Additionally, there are still significant data gaps. Smart water data does not provide granular, fixture-level information on water use from specific uses like appliances or gardens.
The fragmentation of digital services and a lack of unified platforms prevent customers from seeing the broader picture or recognising the impact of combined resource savings across energy and water.
To provide customers with actionable insights that drive meaningful water consumption reduction, innovation is needed to:
We are calling on innovators to develop innovative solutions which deliver tailored water usage insights that drive a reduction in water consumption for households and/or businesses in England and Wales.
We are looking for a portfolio of different solutions that meet the Challenge Statement. Here are some example solutions to further describe the kinds of innovations we might expect to receive – this list is illustrative only and not exhaustive; we expect to receive a range of applications outside of these examples:
We will also be sending an optional post-entry survey to all lead entrants and partner organisations to collect relevant data on EDI of WEL entrants.
