Non-domestic National Energy Efficiency Data-Framework 2025
Source: environment.data.gov.uk (2025-08-21)

Non-domestic National Energy Efficiency Data-Framework (ND-NEED). The National Energy Efficiency Data-Framework was set up to provide a better understanding of energy use and intensity in domestic and non-domestic buildings.

These documents provide data on non-domestic energy use.

1

The Non-Domestic National Energy Efficiency Data-Framework
2025 (England and Wales)
21 August 2025 Official Statistics

This report summarises analysis of the non-domestic building stock and non-domestic
building energy consumption in England and Wales using the latest version of the Non-
Domestic National Energy Efficiency Data-Framework (ND-NEED).1 The latest
consumption estimates are for 2023.
Key Messages:
•
Total electricity consumption in non-domestic buildings decreased by 3% in 2023
compared to 2022, likely due to the continued impact of relatively higher energy prices
in recent years. This reduction was observed across most sectors, with the largest
decline in the factories sector, which fell by 6%. Electricity consumption also fell by 0.3%
in 2022, following the 6% increase seen in 2021.

•
Total gas consumption in non-domestic buildings fell by 8% in 2023 compared to the
previous year, following a decrease of 3% in 2022. The decline in consumption in 2023
was observed across all sectors. Factories and 'other' sectors were particularly affected,
with consumption dropping by 8% and 15%, respectively.
Figure 1: The change in electricity and gas consumption in 2023 compared to 2022
by building use

The data used in Figure 1 can be found in Table 8A-8B and Table 8C-8D of the
Accompanying Tables.

1 The current energy consumption of year 2023 covers from January 2023 to January 2024 for Electricity
consumption while Gas consumption is from May 2023 to May 2024.

2

• Both non-domestic building energy consumption and energy intensity – the average
kilowatt hour consumed per square metre of floor area – varies by building use. However,
the distribution across the two is different:
o The building uses with the highest median electricity and gas intensities are
Hospitality, Shops and Health.
o Whereas the highest consuming building use (excluding Other) is Factories (30%
for electricity and 41% for gas). For electricity, this is followed by Offices (15%) and
Shops (12%). For gas, this is followed by Education (7%), Hospitality (7%) and
Offices (7%).
• Only a small proportion of the highest-consuming sites — 7% for electricity and 4% for
gas — are responsible for 80% of overall consumption.
o Similarly, for both electricity and gas, the combined consumption generally
increases as building size band increases. Buildings over 1,000m2 are responsible for
60% of electricity consumption and 70% of gas consumption, despite both making up
around 7% of non-domestic buildings (excluding buildings missing floor area
information).
• The total number of non-domestic buildings in ND-NEED has remained broadly
unchanged since 2024, at 1.75 million buildings, with a slight reduction due to a drop in the
numbers of buildings used for Hospitality and Shops.
• The total size of floor area in ND-NEED has also remained broadly unchanged since
2024, at approximately 620-million-meter square. There has been a reduction in the sizes
of the floor areas across all building uses, except for Warehouses, which shows a slight
increase.

What you need to know about these statistics
The statistics in ND-NEED cover all non-domestic buildings in England and Wales, under
the ND-NEED definition. Information on the non-domestic building stock reflects the
position at the end of March 2025. Information on energy consumption covers 2012 to
2023, and comprises electricity and gas consumed via the public distribution system (onsite
generated electricity consumption is not included).

Responsible statistician: Ravi Mehta Media enquiries: xx-xxxx-xxxx
Email: xxx@xxx.xx Statistical enquiries: xx-xxxx-xxxx

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Figure 2: Summary graphics of the key ND-NEED 2025 results2.
2022 versus 2023 Electricity consumption and intensity
The data used in Figure 2 can be found in Table 8A-8B and Table 9A-9B of the
Accompanying Tables.

2022 versus 2023 Gas consumption and intensity
The data used in Figure 2 can be found in Table 8C-8D and Table 9C-9D of the
Accompanying Tables.

2 Small values, close to zero, may not be visible.

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Electricity and gas consumption over time, 2012 – 2023
The data used in Figure 2 can be found in Table 8A-8B and Table 8C-8D of the
Accompanying Tables.

Electricity and gas consumption by building use, 2023
The data used in Figure 2 can be found in Table 8A-8B and Table 8C-8D of the
Accompanying Tables.

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Electricity and gas median intensity by building use

The data used in Figure 2 can be found in Table 9A-9B and Table 9C-9D of the
Accompanying Tables.

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Contents
Contents ............................................................................................................................... 6
1. Introduction ....................................................................................................................... 7
2. Results ............................................................................................................................10
England and Wales non-domestic building stock .............................................................10
Non-domestic buildings by building use .......................................................................11
Non-domestic buildings by year of construction ...........................................................17
Non-domestic buildings by year of construction and building use ................................17
Non-domestic buildings by business size .....................................................................20
England and Wales non-domestic building energy consumption/intensity .......................23
Non-domestic energy consumption by building use .....................................................24
Non-domestic energy intensity by building use ............................................................37
Non-domestic energy consumption by building size ....................................................40
Non-domestic energy intensity by building size ............................................................42
Non-domestic energy consumption by business size ...................................................43
Non-domestic energy intensity by business size ..........................................................46
How has energy consumption/intensity in non-domestic buildings changed over time
(2012 – 2023)? ................................................................................................................48
Electricity consumption.................................................................................................49
Gas consumption ........................................................................................................54
Investigating consumption from buildings with low-consuming non-domestic meters ......57
Electricity consumption.................................................................................................57
Gas consumption .........................................................................................................58
Comparing the results in ND-NEED to comparable figures from other publications ........62
Consumption by building use .......................................................................................62
Consumption over time ................................................................................................64
Main limitations of ND-NEED ..............................................................................................66
Accompanying tables ..........................................................................................................69
Revisions policy ...................................................................................................................70
User engagement ................................................................................................................70
Contact ................................................................................................................................70

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1. Introduction
The Non-Domestic National Energy Efficiency Data-Framework 2025 (ND-NEED 2025)
provides an insight into the electricity and gas consumption/intensity of non-domestic
buildings in England and Wales in 2023 (split by sector, building size and occupying
business size) and how this has changed over time. This also provides information on the
non-domestic building stock, with a breakdown of non-domestic buildings by year of
construction and occupying business size.

Further information on the number of buildings in the non-domestic building stock and non-
domestic floor area first published in ND-NEED 2020 is also available.
ND-NEED is based on the Valuation Office Agency (VOA)’s list of all non-domestic
premises (“hereditaments”) in England and Wales (the non-domestic ratings list (NDR)) and
the VOA’s summary valuation data (SMV) which contains information on the premises’
size3. Whilst ND-NEED 2023 used the position of the 2017 NDR/SMV as at the end of
March 2023, this updates the picture to the middle of March 2025 and utilises the 2023
NDR/SMV4.
There are 2,112,000 hereditaments across England and Wales5 in the NDR/SMV dataset
received from VOA. However, in ND-NEED, the NDR/SMV data are aggregated at the
building level (unique property reference number (UPRN)) and further processed to provide
information about the number, floor area and age of buildings in the ND-NEED non-
domestic building stock. Each building is also classified to one of the 10 sectors used in
ND-NEED, based on the building use provided in the NDR/SMV data. This dataset covers
all the 1,748,000 buildings6 in the ND-NEED non-domestic building population.
The non-domestic building stock is matched to the electricity and gas consumption (2012-
2023) data at meter point level owned by the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero
(DESNZ). When the non-domestic building stock was matched to electricity and gas
consumption data, 890,000 buildings were matched to at least one year of consumption
data, and 380,000 buildings for gas (this is the ND-NEED sample). 847,000 of these had
electricity consumption data for 2023, while 337,000 had gas consumption data for
2023.This sample is then matched to business data7 to provide information on the size,
measured by the number of employees of the business occupying a building.

3 The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) have been given access to this data via a legal
gateway (specified in an information sharing agreement) and securely receives this data directly from the
VOA.
4 VOA presents statistics on non-domestic properties (numbers and floor space) on a hereditament basis.
5 This figure will differ slightly from the updated 2025 VOA figure based on time of download.
6 This excludes all non-buildings, as well as the 124,000 hereditaments that do not have UPRNs.
7 Business data, such as employment figures, are obtained from the Interdepartmental Business Register
(IDBR).

8

The matched dataset can then be used to analyse the electricity/gas consumption/intensity
of non-domestic buildings from a large sample size. The sample contains information on
building use, building size and occupying business size (for those successfully matched) so
the consumption data can be disaggregated by these characteristics. The resulting
consumption data for the sample are then weighted to be representative of the population
level.
More information about the ND-NEED sample and the weighting process can be found in
the accompanying Methodology note. The next update to ND-NEED is currently planned for
the summer of 2026.

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Uses of ND-NEED
ND-NEED is used within and beyond government as a central part of the evidence base to
provide insights on the energy consumption trends of non-domestic buildings across a
range of building and business characteristics. Within DESNZ, this data is used to inform
the development of energy security and decarbonisation policies, in addition to the
monitoring and evaluation of current DESNZ policies. Beyond government, ND-NEED is
used by various stakeholders including academics and industry to review trends and
support further analysis related to energy efficiency and buildings decarbonisation.
This publication covers non-domestic buildings and consumption only. Domestic energy
consumption analysis is in this publication Domestic NEED framework. Further examples of
the questions that can and cannot be answered using ND-NEED 2025 are set out below.
What questions can be answered by ND-NEED 2025?
•
How does non-domestic electricity/gas consumption/intensity vary by building use,
building size and occupying business size?
•
How has electricity/gas meter consumption/intensity of non-domestic buildings
changed over time (2012-2023)?
•
How many non-domestic buildings are there in England and Wales and what is the
breakdown by building use and building size?
•
What is the floor area of non-domestic buildings in England and Wales and the
breakdown by building use and building size?
•
How does the non-domestic building stock breakdown by year of construction, and
occupying business size?
What questions cannot be answered by ND-NEED 2025?
•
What is the electricity/gas consumption/intensity of non-domestic buildings in
Scotland and Northern Ireland?
•
What are non-domestic buildings using their energy for (e.g. is energy used for
heating/lighting/industrial processes etc.)?
•
How much of other fuels (e.g. biomass/LPG/oil) do non-domestic buildings
consume?
•
How much energy generated onsite is consumed by non-domestic buildings?
•
How does non-domestic building energy use differ between rented/owner-occupied
buildings?
Further information related to these questions can be found in Energy Consumption in the
UK (ECUK), the Building Energy Efficiency Survey (BEES) and the Digest of UK Energy
Statistics (DUKES), while the Subnational electricity and gas consumption statistics provide
information on meter point consumption for all four UK countries (see a comparison of
relevant figures from other publications here).

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2. Results
England and Wales non-domestic building stock
In ND-NEED a building is defined as a property that has a unique property reference
number (UPRN). In general, each building has a distinct UPRN, so the information
presented in ND-NEED is at the building level.
There are however a few exceptions to this. Where a single physical structure contains
multiple properties with UPRNs e.g. a shopping centre containing multiple shops each
with distinct UPRNs, then this can be multiple buildings in ND-NEED. Where multiple
physical structures have a single UPRN e.g. a university campus or a hospital, then
this is a single building in ND-NEED.
Under the ND-NEED definition, there were 1,748,000, non-domestic
buildings in England and Wales at the end of March 2025. This has
fallen by 0.4% when compared to the number of non-domestic
buildings as at the end of March 2024. This decrease does not
account for the 33,000 existing buildings that now have a UPRN
attached to them. If these had been included last year, the reduction
in overall building numbers this year would have been greater. Further
information on this, and other revisions, can be found in the
accompanying Methodology note.
Some building types are not covered by the ND-NEED figures. These
buildings are:
• Agricultural Buildings, Places of Worship and some
Prisons as these are not included in the VOA’s list of
non-domestic properties (the NDR) that ND-NEED is
based on. The buildings in this category make up 4% of
non-domestic buildings in England and Wales8.
• Caravan Parks, Advertising Premises9, Car Parks, Beach Huts, Quarries, and
Telecoms10 are classified as ‘non-buildings’. These are included in the NDR but are
not considered to be buildings in ND-NEED and so are excluded. The exclusion of
these buildings from ND-NEED reduces the number of buildings in the stock by 8%.

8 Figures based on the UCL Carb model, UCL’s non-domestic energy use model which provides estimates of
total number of buildings for different building types.
9 Places use for advertisement e.g. roundabout adverts, bus shelter adverts, advertising banners.
10 Places used for communication e.g. communication stations, public telephones, telephone exchanges.
The number of ND-NEED
non-domestic buildings in
England and Wales, end
of March 2025
1,748,000
Non-domestic
buildings

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Non-domestic buildings by building use
According to the ND-NEED definition of a building, if there were several buildings uses
within a single building, the building use is assigned to the component premises
(“hereditament”) that has the largest floor area.
This will have a distorting effect on the building stock figures as uses that often occur as the
smaller use (by floor area) in mixed used buildings will be underestimated. However, as
only 2% of buildings in the ND-NEED building stock contain multiple hereditaments, the
impact of this distortion on the building stock figures presented in ND-NEED is likely to be
negligible.
The breakdown of non-domestic buildings in England and Wales by building use can be
seen in Figure 3.
Figure 3: The number of ND-NEED non-domestic buildings in England and Wales by
building use (as at end of March 2025)

*ACL is an abbreviation for Arts, Community and Leisure. The data used in Figure 3 can be
found in Table 1 of the Accompanying Tables.
Shops are the largest building use category with 492,000 buildings (28% of non-domestic
buildings in England and Wales). The second largest category is Offices with 357,000
buildings (20% of all non-domestic buildings in England and Wales), then Factories with
240,000 (14% of non-domestic buildings in England and Wales)11. Other category is a
significant part of the building use with 7% share of the non-domestic building stock. The
market stall and land used for car sales premises make up larger segment of this building
use.

11 Further information on the composition of the building use types can be found in the accompanying
Methodology note (Annex C).

12

Floor area of non-domestic buildings by building use
The overall floor area of all non-domestic buildings in ND-NEED for which floor area
information is available is 619,730,000 m2 (see Table 1)12. Out of the 1,748,000 buildings in
ND-NEED, 312,000 (18%) do not have floor area information. Because of this, all floor area
information presented here should be treated with caution as it will be an underestimate.
The three reasons that buildings may be missing floor area information are:
1. Some non-domestic buildings do not have floor area information available in the SMV
data.
2. If a hereditament in a non-domestic building has a floor area of less than 15m2 in the
SMV it is treated as having no floor area information in ND-NEED.
3. If non-domestic buildings fall into a building use category where floor area data does not
inform the VOA rating, then it is treated as having no floor area data in ND-NEED. This
means that there are some distortions in the floor area by building use figures, as some
building uses will have more floor area information excluded than others. However, this
distortion is likely to be small because the excluded building use categories are very
diverse and include buildings in all building use categories.

12 This figure will differ from VOA’s non-domestic floor area statistics due to methodology differences,
including differences in the building types where floor areas are removed – see Methodology note (Annex D).

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Table 1: The total floor area of ND-NEED non-domestic buildings in England and
Wales by building use (as at end of March 2025)
Building use type
Total floor area (m2)
Proportion of total floor
area
Arts, Community and Leisure
15,197,000
2%
Education
3,793,000
1%
Emergency Services
142,000
0%
Factories
146,596,000
24%
Health
2,290,000
0%
Hospitality
13,465,000
2%
Offices
70,185,000
11%
Shops
96,382,000
16%
Warehouses
222,335,000
36%
Other
49,344,000
8%
Total
619,730,000
100%

From Table 1, Warehouses building use occupies the largest floor area, with over a third of
the total non-domestic floor area. This is followed by Factories, occupying almost a quarter
of non-domestic floor area, and Shops occupying 16%.
The number of buildings in a building use category can be compared with the floor area that
the building use category occupies. For instance, Figure 4 shows that there are significant
differences in the share of building use between the two measures for several sectors.
Both Warehouses and Factories typically occupy large sites. Consequently, they cover a
greater proportion of non-domestic floor area than their share of the total number of non-
domestic buildings. For all other building use sectors, the proportion of the total number of
non-domestic buildings that they occupy is larger than their share of the non-domestic floor
area (except for Other where the floor area share is marginally greater). This is most
prominent for Shops, Hospitality and Offices.

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Note, the proportions presented are only based on the non-domestic buildings
where floor area information is available. They therefore implicitly assume that the
building size distribution of the buildings that are missing building size information is
the same as that of those with this information (see Table 13 in the accompanying
Methodology note).

Figure 4: The share of ND-NEED non-domestic building number and floor area by
building use (as at end of March 2025)
The data used in Figure 4 can be found in Table 1 of the Accompanying Tables.

Number of non-domestic buildings by building size

The breakdown of the number of non-domestic buildings in England and Wales by building
size can be seen in Figure 5.

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Figure 5: The number of ND-NEED non-domestic buildings in England and Wales by
building size (as at end of March 2025)

The data used in Figure 5 can be found in Table 2 of the Accompanying Tables.

The general trend is that as building size increases, the number of non-domestic buildings
decreases. This is true even though the building size categories used in ND-NEED are
wider for larger business sizes.
74% of non-domestic buildings in England and Wales (where floor area information is
available) have a floor area of less than or equal to 250m2, and 93% have a floor area of
less than or equal to 1,000m2.
Note, because 312,000 (18%) of non-domestic buildings in ND-NEED are missing building
size information, the number of buildings in each size category is likely to be an
underestimate as some buildings in the missing category will fall into them as well.
Floor area of non-domestic buildings by building size
The total floor area of non-domestic buildings in each floor area band is given in Table 2.
This shows that larger buildings occupy a greater proportion of non-domestic floor area
than smaller buildings despite the fewer larger buildings in the non-domestic building stock.
Note, the proportions presented are only based on the non-domestic buildings where
floor area information is available. They therefore implicitly assume that the building
size distribution of the buildings that are missing building size information is the same
as that of those with this information.

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Table 2: The total floor area of ND-NEED non-domestic buildings in England and
Wales by building size (as at end of March 2025)

Building size
Total floor area (m2)
Proportion of total floor
area
0 - 50m2
10,449,000
2%
>50 - 100m2
25,831,000
4%
>100 - 250m2
61,271,000
10%
>250 - 500m2
62,013,000
10%
>500 – 1000m2
65,970,000
11%
>1000m2 – 5000m2
166,797,000
27%
>5000 m2
227,399,000
37%
Total
619,730,000
100%
Figure 6 shows the divergent trends in the share of buildings and total floor area by building
size. Although the greatest share of buildings has floor area between 100-250 m2, this then
reduces as floor area increases. The opposite is true of floor area trends, where the share
of floor area increases alongside the floor area band.
Figure 6: The share of ND-NEED non-domestic building number and floor area by
building size (as at end of March 2025)

The data used in Figure 6 can be found in Table 2 of the Accompanying Tables.

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Non-domestic buildings by year of construction
The ND-NEED non-domestic building stock can be split by year of construction. This is
carried out by using the building age variable in the VOA’s NDR list, which provides
information on when each building was completed.
Figure 7: Breakdown of the ND-NEED non-domestic building stock in England and
Wales by year of construction

The data used in Figure 7 can be found in Table 3A of the Accompanying Tables (the
percentages presented represent the share of buildings, excluding the Missing category).

Note, since the building stock data are as at end of March 2025, data for 2025 (and
possibly 2024, due to lags) is not complete. This means that the number of buildings
constructed in the 1996-2025 band will be underestimated.
Figure 7 shows that 28% of non-domestic buildings in the ND-NEED non-domestic building
stock (with year of construction information available) were built before 1900, and just over
half of the non-domestic building (63%) were built before 1970. Changes around building
practices and standards related to energy efficiency have impacted the measures for
decarbonising the non-domestic building stock.
Non-domestic buildings by year of construction and building use
The breakdown of buildings by year of construction and building use shows the type of
buildings in these categories. From Figure 8, we can see that Shops have the highest share
of buildings that were constructed before 1970 but have had a lower share of new buildings
since then. Factories share of buildings increased until 1995 before decreasing slightly
Pre-1900
28% 414,000
1900 - 1939
16% 234,000
1940 - 1970
19% 278,000
1971 - 1995
21% 307,000
18% 262,000
Missing 253,000
1996 - 2025
Pre-1900
1900 - 1939
1940 - 1970
1971 - 1995
1996 - 2025
Missing

18

whereas the share of Warehouses has gradually increased. Offices on the other hand have
remained relatively consistent.
Figure 8: Breakdown of the ND-NEED non-domestic building stock in England and
Wales, by year of construction and building use

The data used in Figure 8 can be found in Table 3B of the Accompanying Tables.

Rate of non-domestic building construction
By looking at the year buildings in the ND-NEED building stock were constructed we can
also gain insight into how the rate of non-domestic building construction has changed over
time (see Figure 9).

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Figure 9: Number of buildings in the ND-NEED non-domestic building stock
constructed between 1900 and 2024 in England and Wales, by number and floor area.

Note, Figure 9 uses a smoothed line graph. For buildings built between 1900 and
1970 (inclusive) where data is only available as bands covering a period of several
years, the data is averaged over that period and plotted for the middle year. For years
between 1971 and 2024 (inclusive), the data is presented as a 3-year rolling average.
For 2025, year of construction data are incomplete, so this has been omitted. The
253,000 buildings missing year of construction data and 414,000 buildings built pre-
1900 are not included in the graph.

Figure 9 shows a general trend that the rate of construction of the buildings in the non-
domestic building stock (as at end of March 2025) increased steeply between 1940 and
1970 and has gradually reduced since then, though there is substantial year to year
variation.
This could reflect an increase in the total rate of non-domestic building construction in this
time period, but it is important to note that this data does not capture buildings that were
built between 1900 and 2024, but that were removed from the stock before 2024 (e.g.
buildings that were demolished, buildings that were repurposed for domestic use etc.)
which is likely to disproportionately affect older buildings.
The average rate of construction of buildings in the non-domestic building stock (as at end
of March 2025) between 2012 and 2024 inclusive was 7,000 buildings per year,
representing 0.5% of the building stock in ND-NEED with the year of construction. The
0
2,000,000
4,000,000
6,000,000
8,000,000
10,000,000
12,000,000
14,000,000
0
5,000
10,000
15,000
20,000
25,000
1900
1925
1950
1975
2000
2025
Total
floor area
(m²)
Number
of
buildings
Year
Number of buildings constructed
Floor area constructed (m²)

20

annual rate has been impacted by economic and other events, with a substantial fall in
construction seen around the 1990 and 2008 recessions and during the COVID-19
pandemic in 2020 and 2021 (with successive annual falls of 27% and 39% in the number of
non-domestic buildings on 2019). This trend is seen across all ND-NEED building uses.
On Figure 9, we can see information on the rate of floor area construction in buildings in the
non-domestic building stock (as at end of March 2025). The comparison of this rate to the
rate of non-domestic building construction gives more details about the changes in the
average size of new non-domestic buildings.
This shows that the average size of non-domestic buildings in the non-domestic building
stock (as at end of March 2025) has increased over time. For example, around 11,000
buildings were built in each of 1958, 1971 and 2002, with the average floor area increasing
from 400m2 to 700m2 and then to 800 m2.13
The number of newly constructed buildings compared with those that were removed from
the ND-NEED stock, either through demolition, closure (temporary or permanent) or
repurpose (including conversion to domestic use) can be used to analyse the change in the
building stock. This analysis shows that there were 69,000 additional buildings as at March
2025 compared to March 2024 and 76,000 buildings which were removed from the stock in
the same period, which gives a net deduction figure of 7,000. However, the 69,000 increase
does not include the 33,000 fewer buildings that did not have a UPRN allocated to them in
2024 (further details on revisions to the building stock are included in the accompanying
Methodology note). This implies that there has been a net reduction in the overall building
numbers of around 40,000, with shops reflecting the highest net decrease in building
numbers at around 11,000 buildings followed by Hospitality and Offices at net reductions of
10,000 and 7,000 respectively.
For offices, this could be attributed to the decline in demand for office spaces and the
increasing adoption of home/hybrid-working in recent years, following the COVID-19
pandemic. For hospitality, this is mostly explained by the removal of 12,000 holiday homes
making up 66% of the removed hospitality buildings in 2025 from the NDR list, many of
which will have been transferred to the Council tax list, following The Non-Domestic Rating
(Definition of Domestic Property) (England) Order 2022, which came into effect on 1 April
2023. This means that holiday lets need to meet certain criteria in order to remain in the
NDR list.
Non-domestic buildings by business size
Business size information is obtained by matching the Interdepartmental Business Register
(IDBR) business characteristics data to the 1,748,000 ND-NEED non-domestic buildings in
the building stock. This gives the breakdown of the non-domestic building stock by business
size that can be seen in Figure 10.

13 This trend is not driven by missing floor area data in ND-NEED since the proportion of buildings missing this
is relatively constant across building ages, with slightly more floor area data missing from newer buildings.

21

Note, the number of employees refers to the total number of employees employed by
the business, not just the employees that work in the building. This means that small
branches of larger businesses e.g. a corner shop that is part of a national chain, will
be in the larger categories.

Figure 10: Breakdown of the ND-NEED non-domestic building stock in England and
Wales by business size.

The data used in Figure 10 can be found in Table 4 of the Accompanying Tables
(percentages presented represent the share of buildings, excluding the Missing category).

From Figure 10, we can deduce that SMEs (<250 employees) occupy most of the non-
domestic buildings (for which business size data are available), with micro businesses (<10
employees) being the most common business size. However, around 70% of the buildings
in the non-domestic building stock are missing business size information.
There are two reasons why buildings cannot be matched to business size information:
1. The UPRN of the corresponding building is missing from the IDBR dataset, either
because the building itself is missing; or

2. The building is in the IDBR dataset, but we are unable to match it to its
corresponding UPRN. This means the business size cannot be matched to the
building.

Micro
58%, 304,000
Small
18%, 93,000
Medium
6%, 33,000
Large
Very Large
14%, 74,000
Missing, 1,224,000
4%,
20,000
Micro
Small
Medium
Large
Very Large
Missing

22

Looking at the high number of buildings with missing business size information, the number
of buildings occupied by a business of a particular size, across all categories is likely to be
underestimated. It is also possible that the true pattern of distribution of businesses in the
non-domestic building stock is different from what is presented here. This means these
estimates should be used with caution as they are associated with substantial uncertainty.

23

England and Wales non-domestic building energy
consumption/intensity
According to ND-NEED, the total non-domestic buildings in England and Wales used 120
TWh of electricity and 152 TWh of gas in 2023 (the most recent year for which data are
available).
Note, electricity consumption data is recorded from end January to end January,
whereas gas consumption data covers mid-May to mid-May (from 2018 onwards).
These consumption figures are based on the 2023 sample (847,000 buildings for electricity
consumption and 337,000 for gas consumption) of the ND-NEED building stock that was
successfully matched to electricity and gas meter-point data (gas consumption figures are
temperature corrected). This sample is then weighted to be representative of the population
(over 1.75 million buildings). More information about the sampling and weighting process in
ND-NEED can be found in the accompanying Methodology note.
Note, these figures are not directly comparable to the yearly consumption figures
published in ND-NEED 2024 due to methodological revisions. For more information on
these revisions please see the accompanying Methodology note. For comparable
figures for 2022 consumption, please see the consumption time series in Table 8 of
the accompanying data tables.
Energy consumption that is not through the electricity or gas grid (e.g. energy generated
onsite from renewables) is excluded from ND-NEED as the consumption figures are based
on meter point data. According to the Digest of UK Energy Statistics (DUKES)14 74% of
non-domestic building electricity consumption was from the grid in 2023.
As ND-NEED is based on meter-point data, it implies that the consumption figures capture
all grid energy consumed by a non-domestic building, regardless of end-use e.g. heating,
lighting, industrial processes etc. This works differently in some other publications such as
the Building Energy Efficiency Survey (BEES) which only covers energy consumed by the
building itself e.g. heating, lighting, but not energy consumed by activities within the building
e.g. industrial processes.

14 DUKES, Table 5.2, Sectors: Industry, Commercial, Public administration used as a proxy for non-domestic
buildings. Public Distribution System as a share of Total Consumption.

24

Non-domestic energy consumption by building use
Electricity consumption
Figure 11: The electricity consumption of ND-NEED non-domestic buildings in
England and Wales by building use, 2023
The data used in Figure 11 can be found in Table 8A-8B of the Accompanying Tables.

Figure 11 shows non-domestic building electricity consumption by building use. It shows
that Factories are the highest electricity (36 TWh in 2023) consuming building use. This is
twice the consumption of the second highest consuming building use, Offices (18 TWh).

This is despite having more Shops (495,000) and Offices (356,000) than there are
Factories (240,000) in England and Wales. This suggests that Factories are carrying out
processes that have high electricity demands (such as industrial processes whose energy
consumption is captured in ND-NEED).
Distributional analysis: Electricity consumption
This analysis provides further information about how electricity consumption is distributed
within the non-domestic building stock. It is based on the ND-NEED 2025 sample that is
weighted to be representative of the non-domestic building population (for more information
see the accompanying Methodology note. For example, we can look at the frequency of
different electricity consumption values.

25

Figure 12: Frequency of different electricity consumption values for all non-domestic
buildings, 2023

Note: This histogram has unweighted electricity consumption on the x-axis (ascending
order), shown on a base-10 log scale. The y-axis shows a frequency count, that is the
weighted number of buildings that have electricity consumption 2023 values within the
corresponding consumption band.

Figure 12 is the plot of electricity consumption against the frequency of buildings whose
consumption falls within that band. The highest bar on the chart represents consumption
between 3,160 kWh (103.5 kWh) and 10,000 kWh (104 kWh) per year. This means that
Figure 12 shows that a plurality of buildings consume between 3,160 kWh (103.5 kWh) and
10,000 kWh (104 kWh) per year, and fewer buildings have consumption at either the lower
or higher extremes.
There are a significant number of buildings whose consumption is lower than average
domestic consumption (3,300 kWh)15 in 2023. This is 24% of buildings in the ND-NEED
sample.

15 Subnational electricity and gas consumption summary report 2023.

26

Note, that the distribution in Figure 12 is on a log-10 scale. This is because the
underlying data is positively skewed with a long tail of high-consuming sites. This
positive skew can also be seen in the data when you look at the comparison between
the weighted median electricity consumption and the weighted mean electricity
consumption. The weighted median electricity consumption of non-domestic buildings
is 6,600 kWh, compared to a weighted mean electricity consumption of 65,300 kWh.
We can also present the data in Figure 12 split by building use. Figure 13 shows that
the distribution of electricity consumption remains broadly similar between sectors,
with a peak of buildings with similar electricity consumption values, and fewer
buildings with both lower and higher electricity consumption.

There are however some differences between building uses. Factories, Offices and Shops
have a longer tail compared to Hospitality, showing that there are proportionally more very
high and very low consuming Factories, Offices and Shops. The smaller tails and more
uniform distribution of the Hospitality sector distribution suggest that Hospitality buildings
have more homogenous electricity consumption than the other sectors.

Figure 13: Frequency of different electricity consumption values, by building use,
2023

Note: This histogram has unweighted electricity consumption on the x-axis (ascending
order), shown on a base-10 log scale. The y-axis shows a frequency count, that is the
weighted number of buildings that have electricity consumption 2023 values within the
corresponding consumption band.

27

The distribution of electricity consumption in ND-NEED can also be viewed by considering
the proportion of total electricity consumption that comes from a given proportion of the
building stock. This will help us to understand the impact of the small number of high
consuming sites (identified above) on total electricity consumption.
Figure 14: The proportion of the building stock (in ascending consumption order)
against the proportion of total electricity consumption, 2023.

Note: This cumulative distribution plot has the proportion of buildings in the ND-NEED
sample with 2023 electricity consumption on the x-axis (ordered by unweighted
electricity consumption). The y-axis shows the proportion of weighted 2023 electricity
consumption that these buildings are consuming.

From Figure 14, most of non-domestic building electricity consumption comes from a
minority of non-domestic buildings (80% of consumption comes from the 7% highest
consuming buildings). This implies that the small number of high consuming sites identified
in Figure 14 has a significant impact on total electricity consumption. This is also
demonstrated in Table 3a, which shows that the lowest 10% of electricity consumption
(accounting for 12 TWh) is consumed by 79% of buildings in the 2023 sample.

28

Table 3a: Cumulative electricity consumption and number of buildings by
consumption percentile, 2023
Consumption
Percentile
Cumulative
Consumption
(TWh)
Number of
buildings in the
sample
(Cumulative)
Percentage of
building sample (%)
10%
12
671,000
79.2%
20%
24
785,000
92.6%
30%
36
822,000
97.0%
40%
48
837,000
98.8%
50%
60
843,000
99.5%
60%
72
845,000
99.8%
70%
84
846,000
99.9%
80%
96
847,000
100.0%
90%
108
847,000
100.0%
100%
120
847,000
100.0%

Table 3b shows the presentation of the data in Figure 14 from the opposite perspective. By
looking at cumulative consumption by the building percentiles, 90% of the buildings, in
ascending consumption order, are responsible for only 20 TWh (17%) of the total 120 TWh
electricity consumption.

29

Table 3b: Cumulative number of buildings and electricity consumption by building
percentile, 2023
Building
Percentile
Cumulative Number
of buildings
Cumulative
Consumption (TWh)
Percentage of
Consumption (%)
10%
85,000
0.1
0.1%
20%
169,000
0.5
0.5%
30%
250,000
1
1.1%
40%
339,000
2
1.9%
50%
423,000
4
3.1%
60%
508,000
6
4.6%
70%
593,000
8
6.9%
80%
678,000
12
10.3%
90%
762,000
20
16.8%
100%
847,000
120
100.0%

We can also split this analysis by building use (Figure 15). Figure 15 reflects the overall
pattern of a minority of high-consuming buildings accounting for most of the electricity
consumption that is seen across all building uses.
For Factories, 80% of electricity consumption comes from the highest consuming 2% of
buildings. For Education, 80% of consumption comes from the highest consuming 23% of
buildings.

30

Figure 15: The proportion of the building stock (in ascending consumption order)
against the proportion of total electricity consumption, by building use, 2023

Note: This cumulative distribution plot has the proportion of buildings in the ND-NEED
sample with 2023 electricity consumption on the x-axis (ordered by unweighted
electricity consumption). The y-axis shows the proportion of weighted 2023 electricity
consumption that these buildings are consuming.

31

Gas consumption
Figure 16: The gas consumption of ND-NEED non-domestic buildings in England and
Wales by building use, 2023
The data used in Figure 16 can be found in Table 8C-8D of the Accompanying Tables.

Figure 16 shows that there is similarity in the pattern for gas and electricity consumption by
building use. Factories have the highest gas consumption, at 63 TWh in 2023. This is over
five times higher than the gas consumption of any other building use (excluding the ‘Other’
category) despite Factories not being the largest building use in terms of building numbers.
As with electricity consumption, the high gas consumption of Factories is in part driven by
their large size and in part by the high gas consuming processes they carry out:
•
Factories are responsible for 14% of non-domestic buildings, but 24% of non-
domestic building floor area (of the buildings with floor area information available).
•
Energy Consumption in the UK (ECUK)16 shows that industrial processes (high and
low temperature processes, drying/separation, motors, compressed air) account for
over three-quarters (78%) of gas use in industry, and so a large part of gas
consumption in Factories is likely to be driven by these processes.
Most other building types consumed around 10 TWh of gas in 2023. The exceptions to this
are Arts, Community and Leisure, where the buildings consumed 6 TWh of gas, and
Emergency Services where the buildings consumed 1 TWh of gas.

16 ECUK, End-use data tables, Table U2.

32

Distributional analysis: Gas consumption
The distributional analysis of gas consumption from non-domestic buildings can also be
carried out by considering the frequency of different levels of gas consumption to
understand the most common gas consumption level from non-domestic buildings just as it
was done for electricity consumption.

Figure 17: Frequency of different gas consumption values for all non-domestic
buildings, 2023

Note: This histogram has weighted gas consumption on the x-axis (ascending order),
shown on a log scale (log10). The y-axis shows a frequency count, that is the number
of buildings that have gas consumption values within the corresponding consumption
band.
Figure 17 is a plot of gas consumption against the frequency of buildings whose
consumption falls within that band. The tallest bar on the chart represents consumption
between 10,000 kWh (104 kWh) and 31,600 kWh (104.5 kWh) per year. This means that
Figure 17 shows that a plurality of buildings consume between 10,000 kWh (104 kWh) and
31,600 kWh (104.5 kWh) per year, and fewer buildings have consumption at either the lower
or higher extremes.
Note, Figure 17 is presented on a log10 scale because the underlying data is very
positively skewed with a long tail of high-consuming sites. This positive skew can also
be seen in the data when you look at the comparison between the weighted median
gas consumption and the weighted mean gas consumption. The weighted median gas
consumption of non-domestic buildings is 22,900 kWh, compared to a weighted mean
gas consumption of 231,700 kWh.

33

We can also present the data in Figure 17 split by building use. Figure 18 shows Shops,
Factories and Offices all have a modal consumption of 10,000 kWh to 31,600 kWh (104
kWh to 104.5 kWh). Hospitality has a higher modal class at 31,600 kWh to 100,000 kWh
(104.5 kWh to 105 kWh), which is consistent with Hospitality having a higher median gas
consumption than Shops, Factories or Offices.

Figure 18: Frequency of different gas consumption values, split by building use,
2023.

Note: This histogram has unweighted gas consumption on the x-axis (ascending
order), shown on a base-10 log scale. The y-axis shows a frequency count, that is the
weighted number of buildings that have electricity consumption 2023 values within the
corresponding consumption band.

The proportion of non-domestic building consumption that comes from the highest
consuming buildings can also provide more details on the distribution of gas consumption
within the non-domestic building consumption. This will help us to understand how the few
extremely high consuming sites (identified above) impact total gas consumption.

34

Figure 19: Proportion of the building stock (in ascending consumption order) against
the proportion of total gas consumption, 2023

Note: This cumulative distribution plot has the proportion of buildings in the ND-NEED
sample on the x axis (ordered by unweighted gas consumption). The y-axis shows the
proportion of weighted 2023 gas consumption that these buildings are consuming.
From Figure 19 we can see that the majority of non-domestic building gas consumption
comes from a minority of non-domestic buildings (80% of consumption comes from the 4%
highest consuming buildings). This shows that the small number of high consuming sites
identified in Figure 18 above have a substantial impact on total gas consumption. This is
the same pattern that is seen for electricity consumption, although is slightly more
emphasised for gas. Table 4a shows that 87% of the buildings in the 2023 sample are
responsible for consuming the lowest 10% of gas consumption (accounting for 15 TWh).

35

Table 4a: Cumulative gas consumption and number of buildings by consumption
percentile, 2023
Consumption
Percentile
Cumulative
Consumption
(TWh)
Number of buildings
in the sample
(Cumulative)
Percentage of
building sample (%)
10%
15
293,000
86.9%
20%
30
325,000
96.3%
30%
46
333,000
98.8%
40%
61
336,000
99.7%
50%
76
337,000
99.9%
60%
91
337,000
100.0%
70%
107
337,000
100.0%
80%
122
337,000
100.0%
90%
135
337,000
100.0%
100%
152
337,000
100.0%

Table 4b presents the data in Figure 19 from the opposite point of view. It shows that 90%
of the buildings, in ascending consumption order, account for only 18 TWh (12%) of the
total 152 TWh gas consumption when we consider the cumulative consumption by the
building percentiles.

36

Table 4b: Cumulative number of buildings and gas consumption by building
percentile, 2023
Building
Percentile
Cumulative
Number of buildings
Cumulative
Consumption (TWh)
Percentage of
Consumption (%)
10%
34,000
0.1
0.1%
20%
67,000
0.4
0.3%
30%
101,000
1
0.6%
40%
135,000
2
1.1%
50%
169,000
3
1.8%
60%
202,000
4
2.8%
70%
236,000
7
4.3%
80%
270,000
10
6.8%
90%
304,000
18
12.1%
100%
337,000
152
100.0%

We can also split this analysis by building use. From Figure 20, we can see that this pattern
is seen across all building uses. As for electricity this pattern is most convex for Factories,
with 80% of gas consumption coming from the 1% highest consuming buildings, and least
extreme in the Education sector, with 80% of gas consumption coming from the 31%
highest consuming buildings.

37

Figure 20: Proportion of the building stock (in ascending consumption order) against
the proportion of total gas consumption, by building use, 2023

Note: This cumulative distribution plot has the proportion of buildings in the ND-NEED
sample on the x-axis (ordered by unweighted gas consumption). The y-axis shows the
proportion of weighted 2023 gas consumption that these buildings are consuming.

Non-domestic energy intensity by building use
The level of energy consumption in a building use category is partly driven by the number
and size of buildings of that type. Energy intensity can be used as a control for this. Energy
intensity is the average amount of energy used in a square metre of a building. Differences
in energy intensity between sectors are therefore not affected by differences in the number
or size of buildings.
Note, there are multiple definitions or denominators that could be used to calculate
intensity including using economic metrics such as Gross Domestic Product (GDP) or
Gross Value Added (GVA). In ND-NEED, the floor area of a building is used as the
denominator to calculate intensity as it is the most applicable metric for analysing the
energy efficiency of buildings.
The electricity intensity figures presented in ND-NEED are the median electricity intensity,
weighted by the energy weight. Buildings which are missing floor area information are
excluded (see non-domestic energy consumption by building size).

38

Electricity intensity
Figure 21: The median electricity intensity of ND-NEED non-domestic buildings in
England and Wales by building use, 2023
The data used in Figure 21 can be found in Table 9A-9B of the Accompanying Tables.

Figure 21 shows that the pattern of median electricity intensity by building use is quite
different from that of total electricity consumption. Hospitality is the building use with the
highest median electricity intensity (168 kWh/m2), despite having relatively low total
electricity consumption (9 TWh). This high electricity intensity is likely driven by the fact that
hospitality buildings generally operate in small building premises and often perform
activities such as catering which requires high levels of electricity17.

By contrast, Factories have a relatively low median electricity intensity (28 kWh/m2) but high
total electricity consumption (36 TWh). The low electricity intensity of Factories suggests
that their high electricity demands driven by the industrial processes they carry out, are
counterbalanced by the large size of these sites.

17 ECUK, End-use data tables, Table U5.

39

Gas intensity
Figure 22: The median gas intensity of ND-NEED non-domestic buildings in England
and Wales by building use, 2023
The data used in Figure 22 can be found in Table 9C-9D of the Accompanying Tables.

As in the case of electricity, Figure 22 shows that Hospitality is the building use category
with the highest median gas intensity (292 kWh/m2), consuming over 50% more gas per
square metre than any other building type. This is at least partly due to the high gas
demands of the catering activities that often occur in hospitality buildings. This can be seen
in other publications that split energy consumption by end-use (ECUK18 and BEES19).
The lowest gas intensities are seen in Factories and Warehouses with 70 kWh/m2 and 53
kWh/m2 respectively. A key driver of the low gas intensities of Factories and Warehouses is
likely to be their large building size. Factories and Warehouses occupy more than half of
non-domestic building floor area (60%), despite only accounting for 27% of non-domestic
buildings (see Table 1 and Figure 3 in Non-domestic buildings by building use).

18 ECUK, End-use data tables, Table U5.
19 BEES, Overarching tables, Figure 3.13.

40

Non-domestic energy consumption by building size
Electricity consumption
Figure 23: The electricity consumption of ND-NEED non-domestic buildings in
England and Wales by building size, 2023

The data used in Figure 23 can be found in Table 10 of the Accompanying Tables.

As shown in Figure 23, there is a clear trend that, as building size increases, the share of
total electricity consumption increases; this is particularly true for buildings that are over
1,000m2. This trend is not driven by the number of buildings as there are more buildings in
the smaller floor area categories than there are in the larger ones. Instead, this trend is at
least partly driven by the floor area of buildings in these categories. The total floor area has
a similar pattern to the electricity consumption figures with a greater floor area in the larger
floor area bands.

Note, there is a proportion of non-domestic buildings in ND-NEED that are missing
building size information – 18% of non-domestic buildings in the ND-NEED sample
with electricity consumption in 2023 are missing floor area information. These
buildings accounts for 46 TWh (38%) of electricity consumption. This means figures
on the electricity consumption of a particular building size should be used with caution
as they are likely to be an underestimate. It also means that there is some uncertainty
associated with the building size trend presented above.

0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
50
Missing
0-50
>50-100
>100-250
>250-500
>500-1,000
>1,000-5,000
>5,000
Electricity consumption (TWh)
Floor Area (m2)

41

Gas consumption
Figure 24: The gas consumption of ND-NEED non-domestic buildings in England and
Wales by building size, 2023

The data used in Figure 24 can be found in Table 10 of the Accompanying Tables.

As with electricity consumption, Figure 24 shows that gas consumption tends to increase as
building size increases. Again, this trend is at least in part driven by the larger total floor
area of the buildings in the larger floor area bands.

It is again important to note the substantial size of the ‘Building size missing’ category
which makes up 52% of consumption at 79TWh, more than any other building size
category. This consumption comes from the 23% of buildings in the ND-NEED gas
consumption sample that are missing building size information. The size of the
missing category means that the consumption figures for each building size category
are likely to be underestimates and so should be used with caution. It also means
there is some uncertainty associated with the results above.

0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
Missing
0-50
>50-100
>100-250
>250-500
>500-1,000
>1,000-5,000
>5,000
Gas consumption (TWh)
Floor Area (m2)

42

Non-domestic energy intensity by building size
Electricity intensity
Figure 25: The median electricity intensity of ND-NEED non-domestic buildings in
England and Wales by building size, 2023

The data used in Figure 25 can be found in Table 11 of the Accompanying Tables.

Median electricity intensity (Figure 25) shows the opposite trend to total electricity
consumption, with smaller buildings generally using more electricity per square metre than
larger buildings. The smallest buildings (0-50m2) use 94kWh/m2 while the biggest buildings
use 44kWh/m2. The median electricity intensity decreases with the floor area.

0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
0-50
>50-100
>100-250
>250-500
>500-1,000
>1,000-5,000
>5,000
Median electricity intensity (kWh/m²)
Floor Area (m2)

43

Gas intensity

Figure 26: The median gas intensity of ND-NEED non-domestic buildings in England
and Wales by building size, 2023
The data used in Figure 26 can be found in Table 11 of the Accompanying Tables.

Like electricity, median gas intensity shows the opposite trend to gas consumption with
smaller buildings using more gas per square metre (Figure 26). This trend is more
pronounced for gas intensity than it is for electricity intensity.

Non-domestic energy consumption by business size
Non-domestic building energy consumption can also be broken down by business size. In
ND-NEED, business size refers to the number of employees of the business occupying the
building.
As it is the case for the building stock, in the energy consumption business size categories
the number of employees refers to the number of employees employed by the business as
a whole, not just the employees that work in the building. This means that small branches of
larger businesses e.g. a corner shop that is part of a national chain, will be in the larger
categories.
A Micro business has fewer than 10 employees, a Small business has 10 - 49 employees, a
Medium business has 50 - 249 employees, a Large business has 250 - 999 employees and
a Very Large business has 1,000 employees or more.
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
350
400
450
0-50
>50-100
>100-250
>250-500
>500-1,000
>1,000-5,000
>5,000
Median gas intensity (kWh/m²)
Floor Area (m2)

44

Note, the weighting used to scale up consumption from the ND-NEED sample to the
population does not account for potential differences between the size of businesses
in the sample and the size of businesses in the population. This is because of the
lower coverage of business size information in the building stock (only 30% of non-
domestic buildings have business size information). This means that the energy
consumption figures by business size are more subjected to uncertainty as to whether
they are representatives of the population, than for the consumption figures by
building use or by floor area.
Electricity consumption
Figure 27: The electricity consumption of ND-NEED non-domestic buildings in
England and Wales by business size, 2023

The data used in Figure 27 can be found in Table 12 of the Accompanying Tables.

Figure 27 shows the contribution of buildings occupied by businesses of different sizes to
non-domestic building electricity consumption. Buildings occupied by Very Large
businesses consume the most electricity (27 TWh), followed by buildings occupied by
Medium sized businesses (11 TWh), and Micro (10 TWh), with buildings occupied by Small
and Large businesses consuming the least electricity around 8 to 10 TWh respectively. The
pattern in this case is different from that seen in the number of buildings in the non-
domestic building stock (see Figure 10, where Microbusinesses represent 58% of the stock
(with available business size information), and Very Large 14%.

Note that the electricity consumption recorded from the missing business size
information is 54 TWh. This corresponds to the 478,000 buildings of the 847,000 in the
ND-NEED electricity consumption sample for 2023, where information on the
occupying business size is not available.

45

In ND-NEED the business size information comes from the IDBR business characteristics
dataset which is matched onto the non-domestic buildings and energy consumption data.
There are two reasons why business size information may not be available:
•
The IDBR dataset may not contain business size information for a building.
•
The IDBR dataset may contain business size information, but this cannot be
successfully matched to the corresponding building.
Because of the substantial size of the ‘Business size missing’ consumption category, the
consumption figures for other categories e.g. Micro, Small etc. should be used with caution
as they are likely to be underestimates (as some of the consumption in the ‘Business size
missing’ category should be in those categories). It also means that there is substantial
uncertainty around the pattern of results.
Gas consumption
Figure 28: The gas consumption of ND-NEED non-domestic buildings in England and
Wales by business size, 2023

The data used in Figure 28 can be found in Table 12 of the Accompanying Tables.

Figure 28 shows that gas consumption by business size follows a similar pattern to
electricity consumption. Buildings occupied by Very Large sized businesses is the highest
gas consuming building at (44 TWh), followed by Medium-sized businesses (16 TWh),
Large (13 TWh) and Micro and Small businesses (11 and 9 TWh, respectively).

46

It is again important to consider the large amount of gas consumption (63 TWh) from the
‘Business size missing’ category. This is because 174,000 of the 337,000 buildings in the
ND-NEED gas consumption sample for 2023 are missing business size information.
Because of this, the consumption figures for each business size category are likely to be
underestimates (as some consumption from buildings that are missing business size
information is likely to fall into each category), and there is substantial uncertainty around
the pattern of results seen.

Non-domestic energy intensity by business size
Electricity intensity
Figure 29: The median electricity intensity of ND-NEED non-domestic buildings in
England and Wales by business size, 2023

The data used in Figure 29 can be found in Table 13 of the Accompanying Tables.

From Figure 29 we can see that electricity intensity increases with the size of the business.
It is greatest among Very Large businesses (117 kWh/m2), with micro businesses having
the lowest intensity (68 kWh/m2).

As with the electricity consumption figures it is important to note the substantial size of the
business size missing category – 52% of buildings in the ND-NEED sample that have floor
area information are missing business size information. This makes it difficult to draw any
firm conclusions from the results as they are associated with a high degree of uncertainty.

47

Gas intensity
Figure 30: The median gas intensity of ND-NEED non-domestic buildings in England
and Wales by business size, 2023

The data used in Figure 30 can be found in Table 13 of the Accompanying Tables.

Figure 30 shows that Micro business size has the highest gas intensity of 162 kWh/m2.
Unlike electricity intensity, gas intensity generally decreases with the size of the business,
mostly driven by shops.

Again, it is important to note the substantial size of the business size missing category –
almost half (45%) of buildings in the ND-NEED sample that have both gas consumption and
floor area information are missing business size information. This makes it difficult to draw
any firm conclusions from the results.

48

How has energy consumption/intensity in non-domestic
buildings changed over time (2012 – 2023)?
ND-NEED can also provide information on the electricity and gas consumption/intensity
over time, which can be disaggregated by building use.
Note: the electricity consumption year is end-January to end-January, the gas
consumption year runs from mid-May to mid-May since 2018.
In addition to overall consumption, the median consumption and median intensity can also
be used to investigate how non-domestic building energy use has changed over time.
Median consumption will be less affected by consumption from a few high consuming
buildings than the overall consumption time series.

Note: the floor area information in ND-NEED is only available for a single point in time
(March 2025). This means that any changes in the energy intensity time series are
basically influenced by the changes in consumption, as the impact of any changes in
floor area will not be captured.

In this update we have presented several energy consumption/intensity time series:
1. Electricity and gas consumption over time (2012 – 2023)
2. Median electricity and gas consumption over time (2012 – 2023)
3. Median electricity and gas intensity over time (2012 – 2023)

Note, because the ND-NEED statistics are created by scaling up the results from a
sample of buildings to the population level (rather than from the whole population
directly) there is some degree of uncertainty surrounding all ND-NEED estimates.
Because of this uncertainty small changes in the ND-NEED consumption figures over
time could result in underestimation or overestimation rather than showing the true
change.

49

Electricity consumption
Figure 31: Electricity consumption in ND-NEED non-domestic buildings in England
and Wales, 2012-2023

The data used in Figure 31 can be found in Table 8A-8B of the Accompanying Tables.

Figure 31 shows that there has been an overall downward trend in the electricity
consumption of non-domestic buildings in England and Wales between 2012 and 2023.
There was a noticeable 13% reduction of consumption between 2019 and 2020 likely due
to the COVID-19 pandemic and consequent trading restrictions. Consumption increased in
2021 following the partial removal of restrictions (6% more than in 2020), although not yet
to the same pre-pandemic level as in 2019. Since 2021, consumption has dropped by 0.3%
and 3% in 2022 and 2023 respectively. The reduction in consumption could possibly be due
to the impact of high energy prices (average non-domestic electricity prices rose by 47%
between 2022 Q2 and 2023 Q4)20. This is broadly consistent with the trend seen in other
publications such as the Subnational electricity consumption statistics and DUKES21.

20 Quarterly non-domestic energy prices, June 2025, Table 3.4.1.
21 Dukes, Table 5.2, Sectors: Industry, Commercial, Public administration.

50

Unlike other publications, ND-NEED can also split this time series by building use. Most
building uses show a similar pattern to overall consumption, with consumption decreasing
slightly between 2012 and 2019, with significant falls in 2020.22 Most sectors show a pattern
of recovery in 2021 followed by falls in 2023. The sectors (Hospitality and Arts, Community
and Leisure sectors) which experienced major falls in consumption during COVID-19 rose
by 9% and 10% in 2022 with the next highest rise being Education at 2%. However, there
was an overall decrease of 3% in consumption in 2023 compared to 2022, which is
consistent across all sectors, with the Factories leading the decline at 6% followed by
Shops at 3%.

Offices’ electricity consumption is the second highest electricity consuming building use
after Factories. This sector has shown a gradual decrease, with a 18% fall between 2012-
2019, followed by a slight increase of less than 1% in 2022 before continuing with a 2%
downtrend in 2023. This reflects the impacts of high energy prices in 2023, and the possible
impacts of hybrid/home-working pattern adopted by organisations after the pandemic.
However, there has been an increase in the share of electricity consumed by dedicated
computer data centres from the Office category. Despite making up less than 1% (around
300 buildings) of Office buildings, computer data centres were responsible for 15% of the
weighted electricity consumption in 2023 from Offices, an increase from 11% in 2012 (see
Table 5).

22 The “Other” sector accounts for a 13% share of the total electricity consumption this year and has
constantly seen a year-on-year increase since 2020 - further information in Annex C of the Methodology note.

51

Table 5: Computer data centres: electricity consumption and share of offices
electricity consumption, 2012-2023.
Year
Weighted Electricity
Consumption (GWh)
Share of
Consumption (%) in
Offices
2012
2,717
11%
2013
2,785
11%
2014
2,739
11%
2015
2,752
12%
2016
2,767
12%
2017
2,670
12%
2018
2,646
12%
2019
2,643
13%
2020
2,630
15%
2021
2,589
14%
2022
2,631
14%
2023
2,644
15%

52

Figure 32: Median electricity consumption in ND-NEED non-domestic buildings in
England and Wales, 2012-2023

The data used in Figure 32 can be found in Table 14A-14B of the Accompanying Tables.

Similar to overall consumption, Figure 32 shows how the trend in the median electricity
consumption has been impacted by the COVID-19 restrictions, followed by the bounce-
back in 2021 and offsetting impacts of high energy prices in 2022 and 2023.

The median electricity consumption in non-domestic buildings steadily declined between
2012 and 2019 before the pandemic. However, in 2020 we saw a single year fall of 21%
followed by a similar increase of 19% as restrictions were removed. In 2022, median
consumption fell by 7% across all sectors followed by another 2% fall in 2023. The variation
across years in median consumption is more accentuated than that of overall consumption,
generally due to the lesser influence from the few higher consumption buildings.

The difference between overall and median energy consumption trends can be clearly seen
in the sector with the highest fall. In 2023, Factories sector experienced the highest fall in
median consumption at 3% which is also evident in its overall consumption.

Meanwhile, Hospitality and Warehouses similarly experienced a reduction in median
consumption at 2% and 1% respectively. The overall median electricity consumption for
non-domestic buildings in ND-NEED in 2023 (6,600 kWh) is broadly in line with what is
seen in the Subnational electricity data (6,800 kWh a year). A similar decrease in median
consumption is also observed in the Subnational electricity consumption data.

53

Figure 33: Median electricity intensity in ND-NEED non-domestic buildings in
England and Wales, 2012-2023

The data used in Figure 33 can be found in Table 9A-9B of the Accompanying Tables.

Figure 33 shows that electricity intensity has gradually fallen between 2012 and 2019,
followed by a notable 26% decrease in 2020 compared to 2019. This great drop was largely
driven by Hospitality and Arts, Community and Leisure sectors due to restrictions during the
pandemic. However, this has risen by 22% after partial removal of restrictions in 2021 and
slowly decline afterwards. In 2023, there were decreases seen consistently across sectors
in median electricity intensity, with Factories, Warehouses and Shops sectors showing the
greatest decrease at 2% each. Emergency Services and Arts, Community and Leisure are
exceptions to this with increases at 6% and 1% respectively.

54

Gas consumption23
Figure 34: Gas consumption in ND-NEED non-domestic buildings in England and
Wales, 2012-2023

The data used in Figure 34 can be found in Table 8C-8D of the Accompanying Tables.

Note, the gas consumption figures in ND-NEED are temperature adjusted so any
temperature differences between years will not influence the ND-NEED gas
consumption trend.

Figure 34 shows that, according to ND-NEED, gas consumption in non-domestic buildings
decreased slowly between 2012 and 2023, varying between 165 TWh and 152 TWh,
respectively (an 8% fall). Unlike electricity, the impact of the pandemic on overall gas
consumption is more evident in the 2019 figures, with the rebound featuring in 2020. This is
likely due to the reporting period for gas being mid-May to mid-May, in contrast to
electricity, which is closer to a calendar year.
Therefore, gas data for 2019 includes records in the first four months of 2020, which will be
impacted by the first lockdown period. Since then, gas consumption has fallen in
successive years, possibly driven by the rise in energy prices that has occurred since 2022

23 ND-NEED gas consumption years are not calendar years – from 2018, they run from mid-May to mid-May
(and previous years have varied). For example, data for 2023 covers mid-May 2023 – mid-May 2024. A full
historical breakdown of the time periods used can be found in the Subnational electricity and gas consumption
summary report on page 16. For more information see the Subnational consumption statistics methodology
note which provide the gas consumption figures in ND-NEED.

55

(average non-domestic retail gas prices increased by 53% between 2022 Q1 and 2024
Q1)24 .
There is, however, more variation within certain sectors. Consumption in Hospitality and the
Arts, Communities and Leisure sector experienced significant falls and recoveries in
consumption in 2020 and 2021. Since then, there has been a gradual decrease in the
overall gas consumption. In 2023, all sectors have experienced reductions which amounts
to an 8% overall decrease. Almost all sectors experienced at least a 5% fall with Factories
and Other sectors having the largest fall at 8% and 15% respectively.
Offices saw a 6% decrease in 2023 compared to 2022, possibly because office space had
continued to decline as organisations continued to adjust to hybrid-working, as well as high
energy prices. Warehouses and Shops consumption also fell by 5% and 6% respectively.
The overall trend is consistent with the Subnational gas consumption data, which also
showed a 2% fall in 2023.
Median gas consumption (Figure 35) shows a similar trend to electricity consumption with
evidence of a slight single year decrease in median gas consumption in 2019 and 2020 (8%
and 3%, respectively) before a slight increase of 3% in 2021 which gradually declined in
2023 at 4%. This trend is also seen in the Subnational gas consumption data. The main
drivers of this trend are the Factories and Warehouses sectors, experiencing a decrease of
6% and 5% respectively in 2023. However, the decrease in median gas consumption is
seen across the sectors with at least 3%, exception to this is the Arts, Community and
Leisure that has slightly fallen by 0.4%. In comparison to the rest of building uses
(excluding the “Other” category), whose median gas consumption fell between 2022 and
2023, the trends are not as consistent across all sectors for gas as for electricity.

Note, the median gas consumption in non-domestic buildings in ND-NEED (around
25,000 kWh) is much lower than is seen in the Subnational gas consumption data
(around 147,000 kWh). This is because the Subnational data uses a consumption
threshold of 73,200 kWh to identify non-domestic meters which means some low
consuming non-domestic meters are not included and are instead classified as
domestic. Consumption from these buildings is captured in ND-NEED which leads to
the lower median consumption values.

24 Quarterly non-domestic energy prices, June 2025, Table 3.4.1.

56

Figure 35: Median gas consumption in ND-NEED non-domestic buildings in England
and Wales, 2012-2023
The data used in Figure 35 can be found in Table 14C-14D of the Accompanying Tables.

Gas intensity (Figure 36) shows a similar pattern as electricity intensity, showing a gradual
decrease over time, falling by 11% across the 2012 to 2020 period, this has shown a slight
increase of about 1% after partial removal of pandemic restrictions. Afterwards, a notable
decrease of 10% was seen in 2022 followed by a fall in 2023 at 3%. This reduction is seen
across sectors; with Factories and Warehouses (5%), Hospitality (4%), Health, Shops and
Offices (3%), Arts, Community and Leisure, Education and other (1%) and Emergency
Services experiencing the largest downturns at 22%.

0
10,000
20,000
30,000
40,000
50,000
60,000
70,000
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019
2020
2021
2022
2023
Median
gas
consumption
(kWh)
All
Factories
Offices
Shops
Hospitality
Arts, Community and Leisure

57

Figure 36: Median gas intensity in ND-NEED non-domestic buildings in England and
Wales, 2012-2023

The data used in Figure 36 can be found in Table 9C-9D of the Accompanying Tables.

Investigating consumption from buildings with low-consuming
non-domestic meters

ND-NEED can also provide information on the number of non-domestic buildings that have
‘domestic-like’ or low consuming electricity or gas meters. This can provide an indication of
the proportion of non-domestic buildings that share similar consumption characteristics as
domestic buildings, and how much they contribute to overall non-domestic consumption.
Electricity consumption
There are two key reasons why it is important to understand the number of non-domestic
buildings that have ‘domestic-like’ electricity meters:
1. In ND-NEED the non-domestic electricity meter population is defined as all meters
that are in ‘non-domestic’ profile classes (0, 3 – 8), and any meters in a ‘domestic-
like’ profile class (1,2), that can be matched to a non-domestic building address via
an address-matching algorithm. The ND-NEED address matching algorithm is
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
350
400
450
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019
2020
2021
2022
2023
Median
gas
intensity
(kWh/m²)
All
Factories
Offices
Shops
Hospitality
Arts, Community and Leisure

58

estimated to have a match rate of around 52% which means we know that we are
missing some ‘domestic-like’ meters from the ND-NEED population. Understanding
how many non-domestic buildings have ‘domestic-like’ meters will help us to
understand how many of these meters and what level of electricity consumption is
currently being missed in ND-NEED.
2. The profile class of an electricity meter is used by other electricity consumption
publications such as the Subnational electricity consumption publication to identify
non-domestic meters and so to estimate non-domestic building consumption.
Understanding how many non-domestic buildings have ‘domestic-like’ meters,
therefore, informs how much non-domestic consumption is being recorded as
domestic consumption in these publications.
How to Identify non-domestic buildings with ‘domestic-like’ meters.
1. Meters classified under Profile class 1 or 2 but with consumption more than or equal
100,000KWh are relabelled as non-domestic buildings meters.

2. Meters classified under Profile class 1 or 2 but with consumption values greater than
50,000KWh but less than 100,000KWh with a trace of certain key non-domestic
words/phrases in their addresses are relabelled as non-domestic buildings meters.
Of the 847,000 non-domestic buildings that have been matched to their corresponding
electricity meter in the ND-NEED sample in 2023, 94,000 (11%) have ‘domestic-like’ meters
(meters in profile classes 1 or 2). These may have previously been a domestic property
which have now been converted to non-domestic usage. These buildings with ‘domestic-
like’ meters are responsible for 1 TWh of electricity consumption, 1% of electricity
consumption from buildings with profile class information.
This shows that while these ‘domestic-like’ meters are relatively common in the non-
domestic building stock, they make very little contribution to overall electricity consumption.
This means that although the ND-NEED meter population is likely missing a substantial
number of these ‘domestic-like’ electricity meters, this has little impact on the overall
electricity consumption reported. This will also be the case for other electricity consumption
publications that use profile class to define meters as ‘domestic’ or ‘non-domestic’.
Gas consumption
As gas meters do not have profile classes or similar which could indicate whether a
meter is classified as a domestic or a non-domestic building, the metered consumption
level is used instead.

DESNZ uses the gas industry standard “Annual Quantity” (AQ) cut-off point of 73.2
MWh to determine whether a gas meter is classified as domestic or non-domestic.
Meters that consume <= 73.2 MWh are classified as domestic and meters that
consume >73.2 MWh are classified as non-domestic.

In ND-NEED this classification is refined by also matching low-consuming sites to non-
domestic buildings.

59

For gas consumption there are three key reasons why it is important to understand the
number of gas meters that are low-consuming/’domestic-like’:
1. In ND-NEED the non-domestic gas meter population is defined as all meters that
consume >73.2 MWh and any meters that consume <= 73.2 MWh that can be
matched to a non-domestic building address via an address-matching algorithm. The
ND-NEED address matching algorithm is estimated to have a match rate of around
51% which means we know that we are missing some ‘low-consuming’ meters from
the ND-NEED population. Understanding how many non-domestic buildings have
these ‘low consuming’ meters will help us to identify how many of these meters and
what level of gas consumption is currently being missed in ND-NEED.
2. The consumption level of a gas meter is used by other gas consumption publications
such as the Subnational gas consumption publication to identify non-domestic
meters and so to estimate non-domestic building consumption. Understanding how
many non-domestic buildings have the ‘low-consuming’ meters therefore informs
how much non-domestic consumption is being recorded as domestic consumption in
these publications.
3. Not all non-domestic buildings will have a gas meter – they may be in an area where
no gas connection is available, or they may be in an area where a gas connection is
available but choose not to be connected. Understanding how many buildings with
gas meters are currently being missed in ND-NEED will help us to estimate the
number of non-domestic buildings with no gas connection. This is important as there
are differences in decarbonisation policy for buildings that use gas and those that do
not.

In the ND-NEED sample, 337,000 non-domestic buildings have been successfully matched
to their corresponding gas meter(s) in 2023. Of these 337,000 buildings, 268,000 buildings
consumed <=73.2 MWh of gas in 2023. That is 80% of all buildings with gas consumption
information. These buildings are responsible for 10 TWh of gas consumption, which is
around 7% of gas consumption from the whole non-domestic building stock.
This shows that ‘low-consuming’ gas meters are also common in the non-domestic building
stock and have a non-negligible impact on the total gas consumption level. This means that
the ND-NEED meter population is potentially missing a substantial number of gas meters
and is slightly underestimating the total gas consumption from non-domestic buildings. This
will be even more true for other publications which just use the 73.2 MWh cut-off to identify
non-domestic consumption as they don’t use address matching to identify any lower
consuming sites.

Note, typical domestic gas consumption is much lower than 73.2 MWh. Ofgem
estimates that the medium domestic gas consumption is 11.5 MWh and high domestic
gas consumption is 17 MWh.

60

If 17 MWh a year is used as the cut-off for non-domestic consumption, then 150,000
buildings (44% of buildings in the ND-NEED gas sample) have ‘domestic-like’ gas
consumption in 2023 (<17 MWh). These buildings are responsible for 2 TWh of
consumption.
If 11.5 MWh a year is used as the cut-off for non-domestic consumption, then 109,000
buildings (32% of buildings in the ND-NEED gas sample) have ‘domestic-like’ gas
consumption in 2023 (<11.5 MWh). These buildings are responsible for 1 TWh of
consumption.

Overlap between buildings with ‘domestic-like’ electricity meters and ‘domestic-like’ gas
meters
Another area we can investigate with the ND-NEED data is the extent to which the buildings
with ‘domestic-like’ electricity and gas meters overlap. For this analysis a gas meter will be
considered ‘domestic-like’ if it consumed less than Ofgem’s ‘high domestic consumption’
level of 17 MWh in 2023.
There are 94,000 non-domestic buildings with ‘domestic-like’ electricity meters and 150,000
non-domestic buildings with ‘domestic-like’ gas consumption in the ND-NEED sample.
As Figure 37 shows of the 145,000 non-domestic buildings with ‘domestic-like’ gas
consumption, 32,000 also have ‘domestic-like’ electricity meters. That means that 23% of
the buildings with ‘domestic-like’ gas consumption also have ‘domestic-like’ electricity
meters.
Of the 94,000 non-domestic buildings with ‘domestic-like’ electricity meters, 45,000 also
consumed gas in 2023. As Figure 37 shows, of these 45,000 buildings, 32,000 have
‘domestic-like’ gas consumption. That means that 71% of the gas consuming buildings with
‘domestic-like’ electricity meters also have ‘domestic-like’ gas consumption.

61

Figure 37: Overlap between buildings with ‘domestic-like’ electricity meters and
‘domestic-like’ gas consumption meters

62

Comparing the results in ND-NEED to comparable figures
from other publications
Consumption by building use
The electricity/gas consumption of non-domestic buildings broken down by building use is
available in other publications as well as in ND-NEED. Figures 38 and 39 compare the total
electricity and gas consumption figures for non-domestic buildings from three different
sources (ND-NEED, BEES25 and ECUK26).
In general, all three publications have similar electricity consumption figures by building
use. The figures in ECUK are mostly higher than the figures in ND-NEED and BEES. This
is consistent with the fact that ECUK covers the whole of the UK, whereas the ND-NEED
and BEES just cover England and Wales. Methodological differences also account for
some of this difference.
The notable exception to this is Factories where consumption in BEES is much lower than
in ND-NEED (11 TWh in BEES compared to 42 TWh in ND-NEED). Factory consumption
figures are not available for ECUK. This difference can be explained by a difference in the
BEES and ND-NEED methodologies. The BEES consumption figure refers to all electricity
consumed by the building whereas the ND-NEED figures, as they are based on meter point
data, refer to all energy consumed by the building and any activity inside the building. In the
case of Factories, this means that industrial processes are not included in the BEES
consumption figures, but they are included in ND-NEED.
The gas consumption figures show a similar pattern to the electricity consumption figures.
For all sectors except Factories the consumption figures are relatively consistent across all
three publications. The ND-NEED consumption figure for Factories is much higher than the
BEES consumption figure for the reason stated above.

25 BEES, Overarching report tables, Figure 3.1
26 ECUK, End uses data tables, Table U5

63

Figure 38: Non-domestic building electricity consumption from this version of ND-
NEED for 2016, BEES for 2014-1527, and ECUK for 201628

The ND-NEED data used in Figure 38 can be found in Table 8A-8B of the Accompanying
Tables.

Figure 39: Non-domestic building gas consumption from this version of ND-NEED for
2016, BEES for 2014-1529, and ECUK30 for 2016

27 BEES, Overarching report tables, Figure 3.1. BEES does not have figures for gas so non-electric consumption
is used.
28 ECUK, End uses data tables, Table U5.
29 BEES, Overarching report tables, Figure 3.1. BEES does not have figures for gas so non-electric consumption
is used.
30 ECUK, End uses data tables, Table U5.

64

The ND-NEED data used in Figure 39 can be found in Table 8C-8D of the Accompanying
Tables.

Consumption over time
The total electricity/gas consumption from non-domestic buildings over time is also
available from other publications. Figures 40 and 41 compare the normalised change in
non-domestic electricity and gas consumption over time from three different sources (ND-
NEED, DUKES and Subnational).
The total non-domestic building consumption from these sources varies due to
methodological and definitional differences. The electricity/gas consumption was
normalised to aid easy comparison of the consumption trends over time.
Note for gas consumption both the subnational and ND-NEED gas year runs from
mid-May – mid-May, while the DUKES gas year is the calendar year Jan – Dec. This
may cause differences in the trends seen in these publications.

All three data sources show that non-domestic building electricity/gas consumption has
remained broadly stable between 2012 and 2019, with some evidence of a gradual
decrease for electricity consumption in that period. However, 2020, according to all three
datasets, saw a significant decrease in electricity consumption, before increasing again in
2021 with a drop in 2023. The trend across the three sources is not as consistent for gas,
likely due to the different reporting periods (ND-NEED and Subnational figures are mid-May
to mid-May, and are also temperature-adjusted, unlike DUKES) where some of the
pandemic reductions are not exclusively seen in the 2020 Subnational figure.

65

Figure 40: Non-domestic building normalised electricity consumption, 2012 - 2023
from ND-NEED, Subnational31 and DUKES32

Figure 41: Non-domestic building normalised gas consumption 2012 - 2023 from ND-
NEED, Subnational33 and DUKES34

31 Subnational electricity consumption data.
32 DUKES electricity consumption. Industry, commercial and public administration used as a proxy for non-
domestic buildings. Electricity from the public distribution system.
33 Subnational gas consumption data.
34 DUKES gas consumption. Industry, commercial, public administration and misc. used as a proxy for non-
domestic buildings. Total natural gas.
0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
1.2
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019
2020
2021
2022
2023
Normalised
electricity
consumption
(2012=1)
ND-NEED
Subnat (E&W)
DUKES
0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
1.2
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019
2020
2021
2022
2023
Normalised
gas
consumption
(2012=1)
ND-NEED
Subnat (E&W)
DUKES

66

Main limitations of ND-NEED
The ND-NEED methodology is detailed in the accompanying Methodology note. However, it
should be noted that there are several aspects of ND-NEED’s methodology which currently
limit the insights that it can provide. Work is continually being undertaken to address these.
Address matching
•
Incorrect matches between the non-domestic buildings data and the energy
consumption data (see Methodology Annex A).
o Due to difficulties with the address matching process used to match the
energy consumption data to Address Base, some matches will not be
correct. It is estimated that around 5% of address matches are incorrect.
o If energy meter data has been matched with the wrong address in Address
Base it will then match to the wrong address in the ND-NEED building
stock. The consumption of that building will therefore be assigned to the
wrong building and business characteristics information, and weighted
accordingly, causing distortions in the data.
•
Around 51% match rate between the non-domestic buildings data and the energy
consumption data (see Methodology Annex A).
o Only 51% of non-domestic buildings in the ND-NEED building stock are
matched to electricity consumption data.
o Only 20% are matched to gas consumption data (including non-buildings)
– however, this is expected to be lower than for electricity since not all
buildings use gas.
•
The address matching algorithm uses addresses from January 2025. This means
that any old addresses that no longer exist in Address Base (because the
building no longer exists or because the buildings address has changed e.g. if a
new business is occupying the building) will not be matched.
Weighting
• Because we cannot match all non-domestic buildings data with their energy
consumption data, weighting is needed to ensure the ND-NEED consumption figures
are representative of the population. There are several issues with this:
o Firstly, there is currently no information in ND-NEED about business size at
the population level. Business size is therefore not accounted for in the
weighting process.
o Secondly, although floor area is a factor in the weighting process, the
relatively high rates of missing floor area information in ND-NEED reduces the
efficacy of the floor area weighting.

• Applying energy weights to energy intensity figures:
o Energy intensity is influenced by both the energy consumption and the floor
area of a building, whereas the energy weight currently applied to energy
intensity figures is just influenced by a building’s energy consumption. This

67

means that differences in floor area between the buildings in the sample and
the population are not accounted for.

• Manual elements of the weighting process:
o The current ND-NEED weighting processes requires subjective decisions to
be made about when to merge adjacent cells when there are a low number of
buildings/meters in a particular cell and which cell to merge these ‘low value’
cells with. This means that two people running the weighing process would
calculate slightly different weights, and consequently the consumption values
are slightly different. This adds to the uncertainty surrounding all ND-NEED
consumption estimates.
Consumption: time-series
There are several reasons why consumption in the earlier years in the time series maybe
being underestimated in ND-NEED:

• The building stock figures used in ND-NEED, based on position of the 2023 NDR at
March 2025, do not include sites that have closed (or no longer attract business
rates, for example, if converted to domestic use). Because of this, any buildings that
do not exist in March 2025 will not be included in the ND-NEED stock and so cannot
be matched to energy consumption data.

• The energy consumption data used in this version of ND-NEED only includes meters
which are active in 2023. Because of this, any energy consumption from meters that
have now been deenergised e.g. because the building has been destroyed, is not
captured.

• The weighting process:
o The weighting process in ND-NEED is currently unable to account sufficiently
for the underestimation of consumption in earlier years. This makes it difficult
to create a robust time series from the ND-NEED. Energy consumption in
earlier years is likely to be underestimated, as energy consumed by
buildings/meters that no longer exist would not be captured.
o The manual element of the weighting process (see above) introduces
uncertainty into the consumption figures which can also have a small impact
on the time series trend presented. This means that it is not possible to
determine whether small changes in the time series trend are real changes in
consumption or caused by noise in the data.

68

Missing data
• Many buildings in ND-NEED are missing information on business/building size:
o The main consequences of the high level of missing data in ND-NEED is that
the consumption values associated with a particular business or building size
will likely be an underestimate, as some consumption from buildings that are
missing business/building size information will likely fall into that category.

Mixed building use
• The data received from the VOA (NDR/SMV) is at the hereditament level and must
be aggregated to the building level for use in ND-NEED. Where a building contains
multiple hereditaments of different building uses the building use of the hereditament
with the largest floor area is assigned to the building. However, it is possible that the
building use of the hereditament with the largest floor area does not best represent
the building use of the building as a whole. Improving the building use classification
for building uses with multiple hereditaments would improve the accuracy of ND-
NEED’s energy consumption and energy intensity figures by building use.
Business size
• The business size information in ND-NEED is the size of the business that occupies
the building, not the number of employees that work in the building. Because of this
a small branch of a national store will be a large business in ND-NEED, even if there
are only a few employees occupying the building.

• Additionally, similar to mixed building use, there are often multiple businesses
occupying – or registered to – a building, or even a premises. The method takes the
business with the best match rating to represent that building, which may not best
represent the building as a whole.
Scope
• The definition of a non-domestic building in ND-NEED is an area to review,
particularly with regards to excluded buildings, such as prisons; and included
buildings, such as those within the “Other” category – particularly electricity
hereditaments (which include some generating stations that may consume electricity
for non-building purposes).

69

Accompanying tables
The following tables are available on the department’s statistics website:

1
Number and total floor area of ND-NEED non-domestic buildings by
building use, end of March 2025.
2
Number and total floor area of ND-NEED non-domestic buildings by
floor area bands, end of March 2025.
3
Number of ND-NEED non-domestic buildings by year of construction,
end of March 2025.
Number of ND-NEED non-domestic buildings by building use and year
of construction, end of March 2025.
4
Number of ND-NEED non-domestic buildings by business size, end of
March 2025.
5
ND-NEED non-domestic building number and floor area by building
use and building size, end of March 2025.
6
ND-NEED non-domestic building number and floor area by building
use and business size, end of March 2025.
7
ND-NEED non-domestic building number and floor area by building
size and business size, end of March 2025.
8
ND-NEED non-domestic building electricity and gas consumption by
building use, 2012-2023.
9
ND-NEED non-domestic building median electricity and gas intensity
by building use, 2012 - 2023.
10
ND-NEED non-domestic building electricity and gas consumption by
building size, 2023.
11
ND-NEED non-domestic building median electricity and gas intensity
by building size, 2023.
12
ND-NEED non-domestic building electricity and gas consumption by
business size, 2023.
13
ND-NEED non-domestic building median electricity and gas intensity
by business size, 2023.
14
ND-NEED non-domestic building median electricity and gas
consumption by building use, 2012 - 2023.
15
Electric meter profile classes of buildings in the ND-NEED sample,
2023.
16
Gas meter consumption of buildings in the ND-NEED sample, 2023.
(updated consumption bands).
17
ND-NEED non-domestic building electricity and gas consumption by
building use and building size, 2019-2023.
18
ND-NEED non-domestic building electricity and gas consumption by
building use and business size, 2019-2023.
19
ND-NEED non-domestic building electricity and gas consumption by
business size and building size, 2019-2023.
20
Added and removed buildings, March 2023 – March 2025

70

Revisions policy
The DESNZ statistical revisions policy sets out the revisions policy for these statistics,
which has been developed in accordance with the UK Statistics Authority Code of Practice
for Statistics.
User engagement
Users are encouraged to provide comments and feedback on how these statistics are used
and how well they meet user needs. Comments on any issues relating to this statistical
release are welcomed and should be sent to: xxx@xxx.xx.
The DESNZ statement on statistical public engagement and data standards sets out the
department’s commitments on public engagement and data standards as outlined by the
Code of Practice for Statistics.
Contact
•
Responsible statistician: Ravi Mehta
•
Email: xxx@xxx.xx
•
Media enquiries: xx-xxxx-xxxx
•
Statistical enquiries: xx-xxxx-xxxx