For decades, people in the UK tended to view air conditioning as something that belonged elsewhere. It was associated with office buildings, hotels and hotter countries rather than their own homes. But as summers become warmer and heatwaves more frequent, that picture is beginning to change.
Colleagues and I analysed data from the English Housing Survey, a nationally representative sample of about 16,000 households. This shows that air conditioning remains relatively uncommon, with just 4.3% of households using it in summer. That’s far below countries such as the US (nearly 90%) and Australia (around 75%).
Yet beneath this modest national average lies a far more revealing picture. Air conditioning is not spreading evenly across society. Instead, England is beginning to develop a cooling divide, one in which access to protection from extreme heat increasingly depends on where people live, how much they earn and the type of home they occupy.
During in-depth interviews we conducted with air conditioning users in the UK, people rarely described it as a luxury. Instead, they spoke about trying to sleep through hot nights, remain productive while working the next day, or protect babies or elderly relatives from dangerously high temperatures.
Elena Gurova / Alamy
The geography of this emerging divide is immediately apparent. London and the east of England have by far the highest levels of residential air conditioning, followed by the East Midlands and the south-east. Northern regions remain much less likely to use cooling.
These patterns are hardly surprising. London experiences both warmer summers and a stronger urban heat island effect, where buildings and hard surfaces trap heat long after sunset. But these regional differences also show how the ability to adapt to a warming climate is likely to be distributed unevenly.
Economic inequalities are equally visible. Households in the highest income group are more than twice as likely to own air conditioning than those on the lowest incomes. Installing and running air conditioning is expensive, making it far more accessible to wealthier households.
As with the higher temperatures, those wealthier households who are more easily able to absorb the cost of air conditioning are also highly concentrated in London and the south-east.
Vulnerable groups at risk
Perhaps the most concerning finding is that several groups most vulnerable to heat currently have relatively low access to air conditioning.
Older people, lone-parent households and many lower-income families are among those least likely to use it, despite facing greater health risks during periods of extreme heat. Social and private renters also lag behind owner-occupiers, reflecting barriers such as upfront costs, landlord permissions and practical constraints on installation.
The picture is not entirely negative. Some vulnerable groups are adopting air conditioning at higher rates than the wider population. Households with babies, young children, disabled people and those living with long-term health conditions are all more likely to use air conditioning.
Given the well-established health risks that high temperatures pose for these groups, this is encouraging. It suggests that many households are taking proactive steps to protect their health.
However, this introduces another challenge. Since air conditioning uses lots of electricity, vulnerable families may find themselves facing a difficult choice between staying cool and keeping their energy bills affordable.
In the UK, fuel poverty has traditionally focused on heating homes during winter. But our research suggests a new form of summer fuel poverty may already be emerging.
Jittawit Tachakanjanapong / Alamy
Another notable finding reflects how society itself has changed. Households where someone works from home at least two days each week were 42% more likely to have air conditioning.
Before the pandemic, many people spent the hottest part of the day in air-conditioned workplaces such as offices. Hybrid working has shifted that exposure into the home. Increasingly, homes must function not only as places to live, but also as workplaces during periods of extreme heat.
A national cooling plan
These trends have implications far beyond individual households. A rise in air conditioning in homes will increase electricity demand in summer, placing additional pressure on energy networks.
Unless that electricity comes from zero-carbon sources, it will also increase emissions, creating a feedback loop in which hotter summers drive greater demand for cooling. The solution today therefore cannot simply be more air conditioning for everyone.
Instead, the UK needs a national cooling plan – but that does not simply mean installing more air conditioning everywhere. It should be a plan to keep homes cool naturally, through solutions like external shading and shutters, as well as encouraging more trees in cities to provide shade and other cooling effects. Where air conditioning is essential for vulnerable households, they should receive targeted support.
Even at this early stage, a cooling divide is already taking shape. The question is whether we act now to ensure that protection from dangerous heat is available to everyone – especially those most vulnerable to heat – or wait until a cool home becomes a privilege.
