In April 2017 the water retail market opened for business, enabling businesses, public sector organisations and charities in England and eligible business customers in Wales to choose their supplier of retail water and wastewater services.
Each year since market opening, Ofwat has published a report summarising key market developments, including where and how the market is delivering for customers. Our analysis of market developments forms an important part of our understanding of the extent to which competition may be delivering for customers and more widely, including in respect of environmental and water scarcity issues.
Business retail market update 2024-25
This 2024-25 market update provides an overview of developments in the business retail market from April 2024 to March 2025, marking its eighth year of operation.
Business Retail Market Update 2024-25
Our key findings for 2024-25 are:
- Customer awareness increased slightly. Over half (52%) of business customers surveyed in our Business Customer Insight Survey in 2025 are aware they can choose their water retailer—this compared to 48% in 2022—with awareness significantly higher among larger businesses by both size of business and water consumption.
- Consumer activity remains stable in the last 5 years. The overall proportion of businesses who switched or renegotiated in the last 12 months remains broadly unchanged in the last 5 years at 8.3% in 2025. This is also consistent with MOSL data on number of Supply Point Identifiers (SPID)s switched which has remain around 3% since 2020/21. The share of businesses choosing to renegotiate has increased to 5.0%, up from 3.4% in 2022. In contrast, the proportion of switchers has declined to 4.2%, down from 5.1% in 2022. This overall decline is driven by fewer micro business switching. This is consistent with MOSL data where we observed a slight decline in 2024–25, with 3.1% of all SPIDs switching Retailer compared to 3.4% in 2023–24.
- New entrant’s strong growth continues. New Entrants (those Retailers who have grown their customer base organically as opposed to transferring a customer book) continue to succeed in their acquisition of customers, growing their market share by 1.0 percentage point in 2024-25. They now serve 9.5% of all supply points (SPIDs) in the market. As consistent with the trend observed since market opening, most large Incumbent Retailers continue to see an erosion of market share of SPIDs, about a 1.4% Business retail market update 2024-25 4 decline each year on average. 2024-25 switching data indicate that of the total SPIDs that switched away from Incumbent Retailers, over 46% of these switched to a New Entrant.
- Business Customer complaints to Ofwat reach a new low. The number of business customer complaints to Ofwat in 2024/25 fell by two thirds (66%) compared to 2023/24, to a new low of 81 complaints. Business customer complaints to CCW in 2024–25 fell by 19% in 2024–25 to 1,966, though still above pre-market opening levels, with billing issues accounting for 92% of complaints. However, the number of business customer complaints to water retailers increased by 4.3% compared to last year.
- Overall satisfaction fell. Our Customer Insight Survey found only 15% of the business customers who participated to our customer insight survey mentioned being satisfied overall. This is a sharp decline compared to 2020 where 60% mentioned being satisfied.
- Price savings increased for larger customers. Price savings available to businesses have slightly decreased for smaller customers, while they have slightly increased for larger customers. Retailers reported for 2024-25 that the average annual savings made by low and medium consumption customers are broadly in line compared to 2023/24 while they have increased more substantially for higher consumer customers.
- Progress on market frictions. Industry has made significant progress in 2024-25 in addressing two key market frictions, namely poor quality market data and Wholesaler performance, both of which are important to the timely and accurate billing of customers, effective market operation, and a positive customer experience. Improvements here have also been accompanied by industry work aimed at improving the functioning of the market more generally. For example, the Market Performance Framework (MPF) is being reformed to better support effective market functioning and customer outcomes, with MOSL leading the programme. Key milestones in 2024–25 include industry consultations and Ofwat approval of related Code changes. Implementation of the reform is phased through 2025–26, with full rollout from April 2026. Data assurance audits will become Business As Usual as a result, while separately, a new Strategic Data Programme is being developed to improve data accuracy at source.
Customer insight survey
Ofwat and CCW appointed DJS Research to undertake quantitative research into eligible business customers’ experiences of the market. The full findings of this research are set out in the below report.
Business Customer Insight Survey 2025
Business Customer Insight Survey 2025 – full data tables
Our ongoing monitoring and looking forward
Our ongoing market monitoring activities, including information collected from Retailers, form an important part of our understanding of market evolution and the extent to which competition may be delivering benefits for customers and the environment. This information will help inform our wider policy work, including our next review of the Retail Exit Code (REC) price protections, which under current conditions we anticipate will commence in 2025, with any revisions to the price protections taking effect from April 2027.
Over the coming year we will also continue our focus on other key initiatives that support improvements in market and customer outcomes; in particular, the implementation of the Business customer and Retailer measure of experience (BR-MeX) and reformed Market Performance Framework (MPF) from April 2025 which will play an important role in supporting improvements in Trading Party performance that can lead to an effective market operation and better customer outcomes. Our 2023-24 market update highlights some of the areas for the further unlocking of customer benefits and outcomes for all customer segments, including in relation to the environment and water scarcity.