As Americans moving to the UK, a general understanding of how the utilities in the UK are organized is essential to a smooth transition. From electricity and gas to water, telephone, internet, cell phones, and television, this guide aims to provide you with insights and practical tips. The UK has a utilities system that is similar to the USA, with a few quirks. The biggest quirk, and you may have already heard, is that household’s using television services must pay for a TV License to watch live TV or stream content.  Essential utilities you’ll need to have set up for your home/family will likely include:

• Gas
• Electric
• Water
• Phone/Internet
• TV
• Mobile Phone

Gas & Electric

When it comes to electricity and gas, there are many competitive companies that actively try to gain customers by offering different rates and plans. They’ll call you, stop you on the street, and knock on your door. Be ready to say you’re not interested (claiming to be a tourist is a great one). It’s important to compare these rates to find the best option for your needs. Keep in mind that these firms make huge efforts to gain your business, transferal from one company to the next is very easy, so much so that it can be done without your knowledge.

In the same way that MVNO (Mobile Virtual Network Operator) cell phone providers in the US, such as Tracfone, Straighttalk and Mint, use T-Mobile’s systems to resell services, the UK gas and electric companies use British Gas & Electric’s infrastructure to resell services. This provides competition, and lower prices, where there was a monopoly. At one time, the gas and electric services were government run, until Thatcher privatised them in 1986. ¹

The cost of electricity and gas will vary depending on factors like the size of your house and its insulation, or lack of. Old houses may have drafty doors and windows making heating inefficient. You can get the window insulation film in the UK to help.

The main sources of heating here are ‘central’ hot water heating and storage heaters. Storage heaters charge up in the evenings when the electricity is cheapest and give off heat all day long. In my experience, they are more common in flats and older buildings. Not everyone finds them efficient due to the lack of on-demand heat.

The power lines tend to be run under the British English word for sidewalk. More instead of via poles in most residential areas I’ve seen, which does make them prettier as shown above. You may get poles for some of the telephone lines.

Water

Cold tap water in the UK is safe to drink, like (most) of the US. Water services are provided by local and national companies, with the charges for water bills sometimes based on a standard British word for an apartment. More rate for older properties, not on the quantity used. However, if you have timed sprinkler systems, you may be required to install a water meter. Some water companies were beginning to convert older homes to metered water supplies.

Sewer bills are part of council tax (property tax) as in the USA, however, house renters are expected to pay the council tax instead of the landlord. You can usually set this up online as a monthly payment. It is crucial that you do not fall behind as there are strict rules and consequences.

Telephone

Telephone service can be arranged through BT (British Telecom). There are charges for local calls along with national and overseas distance calls. There are other telephone services you may want to check into as BT systems are resold by other companies as well. Try U-Switch website for comparisons.

BT is not known for great customer service and their call centres are not in the UK. It can take them weeks to turn your service on or install your broadband, as well as fix it if you have problems. I would honestly never use them again after terrible experience with their broadband support. One support person told me that my internet problems were due to having dual monitors on the computer. I was furious. I changed to Sky and it was fixed right away.

Long distance

As for long distance phone calls to the USA, I recommend Planet-Talk. They currently are charging 1.2p per minute to the US 24 hours a day. You can talk to friends/relatives in the States for the same price as making a local daytime call through BT. Another alternative is Skype In/Skype Out.

BT charges 26p/min for local or national calls, though they do now have mobile style packages for 700 minutes and unlimited. Ten years ago they charged between 1p and 4p per minute, depending on the time of day. 

In order to find their latest international call rates, ² you must download a pdf, scroll through around 30 pages, look up the country charge band (USA = A) and then scroll back up to find the per minute rate of 78p, while you choke on your cup of tea. If you get their add-on for International Friends and Family, the rate is closer to 7.8p. There are cheaper/free options, such as Skype, Facebook calls, FaceTime, etc, but not everyone uses these apps. Calling Grandma or US businesses may mean you need to call a phone number.

Alternatives to BT landlines are satellite (Sky), cable tv (Virgin Media), NowTV, and resale phone service provider available in some areas. Shop around!

TV

The UK TV Licence is a tax (by law) to fund the BBC, around £12/month. If you don’t pay, you may be caught and heavily fined. They have vans that patrol streets looking for offenders. Regardless if you have cable or satellite, or stream iPlayer online, you’re still required to pay for the licence.

If you watch or record TV on any channel via any TV service (e.g. Sky, Virgin, Freeview, Freesat), you need to be covered by a TV Licence. If you watch live on streaming services (e.g. ITVX, Channel 4, YouTube, Amazon Prime Video, Now, Sky Go), or use BBC iPlayer*, you need to be covered by a TV Licence. 

You do not need a TV Licence to watch:

• streaming services like Netflix and Disney Plus
• on-demand TV through services like All 4 and Amazon Prime Video
• videos on websites like YouTube
• videos or DVDs

A TV Licence costs £159 (£53.50 for black and white TV sets) for both homes and businesses. ³

The basic free channels are: BBC1, BB2, ITV (3), Channel 4, and Channel 5. You can receive these over aerial. Digital television services can also be received in three ways: through an existing television aerial, as Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) like Freeview; through a cable connection, as Digital Cable Television; via a satellite dish, such as Freesat.

Viewers who choose to receive digital television by any of these methods need either to obtain a special set-top box decoder which will enable digital television pictures to be reassembled on screen, or a television set with this decoder built in. Standard set top digiboxes sell for IRO £25. For services for which a charge is payable, and in some cases on satellite for services that are free, a smart card is also needed to allow reception. These services usually have special connection offers giving either or both free installation and/or box. (The boxes are not rented from the service as in the US. You can get the boxes from electronics shops such as Curry’s and Dixons or direct.) Keep in mind if looking for US cable channels, that a lot of the UK counterparts are entirely separate, ie. Nickelodeon and MTV do not necessarily carry the identical US programming, some, but less not more.

Recently there have been more US based channels added to the cable/satellite lineups, such as Five US, CBS, and ABC. There are also some sports networks that carry more and more US sports including college level.

You might want to just cut the cord and stream your TV. See How to Cut the Cord (Cord Busters UK). These days I only have high-speed internet and stream everything, because I don’t watch very much TV at all.

Internet

Most cable and phone providers also provide internet services in the UK, but there are over 100 providers of broadband at this time. You can use a service like USwitch t o enter the British term for zip code, part of the address. More and search for available providers on your street, and compare their speed offerings and deals. This is something you might want to do while you’re house hunting. I used Sky until 2018, for both internet and satellite TV, with A slang term for the UK police, sometimes "The Old Bill". More being around 135. The fastest broadband type is Fibre with speeds up to a gig. For more information see UK fibre optic broadband statistics 2023.

Now you should be ready to make more informed decisions about your new home!

Utilities in the UK References

1. British Gas – Wikipedia. (2021). Retrieved 9 July 2023, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Gas 

2. BT Calling Costs and Information from Landlines | BT. (2023). Retrieved 9 July 2023, from https://www.bt.com/landline/calling-costs 

3. TV Licence – GOV.UK. (2023). Retrieved 9 July 2023, from https://www.gov.uk/tv-licence