What will the January 2027 energy price cap be? The forecasts, dated

Update, 2 November 2026: the £469 headline, checked

On 1 November 2026 Yorkshire Live ran “UK households face £469 energy bill hike in January amid frightening warning”. The £469 is a forecast, not a decision. The article attributes it to EDF: a January cap of £2,192 a year, a rise of 27.2% on the £1,723 October cap (the article says the cap covers the UK; it covers England, Scotland and Wales). The word “frightening” is not EDF’s or Ofgem’s. In the article it is how the SNP’s Westminster leader described EDF’s predictions.

EDF’s figure has already moved. Its forecast tables, last updated on 28 October 2026, put January at £2,189, £3 lower than the week before, and EDF rates its confidence “low”. That is a rise of £466, or 27%, on £1,723. Add back that £3 and you get the article’s £2,192. The article’s April 2027 figure of £2,389 is also EDF’s earlier number: the same update cut EDF’s April forecast by £81, to £2,308.

Ofgem has not set the January cap. Its published schedule, read on 2 November 2026, says the levels for 1 January to 31 March 2027 will be announced by 25 November 2026. Ofgem says it may publish before then if it needs to because of external reasons. Until then every January figure is a forecast.

The three supplier forecasts have risen since our last check on 9 October. Read at source on 2 November 2026: EDF £2,189 (tables updated 28 October, confidence “low”); British Gas £2,185 (updated 30 October, rounded up to the nearest £5, confidence “Low”); E.ON Next £2,183 (as of 26 October, confidence “Lowest”). Cornwall Insight’s £1,999 is unchanged and still calculated from market prices on 28 September. The three suppliers now put the rise at £460 to £466, about 27%. Cornwall Insight’s older figure is a rise of £276, or 16%. On 9 October the same four forecasts ran from £1,999 to £2,088.

For a typical dual-fuel household paying by Direct Debit, a rise of £460 to £466 a year comes to about £38 to £39 a month if spread evenly over twelve months (our arithmetic). The January cap runs for three months, and it is an annual figure for typical use, not your bill: what you pay depends on what you use.

The Budget on 28 October 2026 does not set the January cap, which is Ofgem’s to set. It extends the 0% rate of VAT on household electricity in Great Britain, which began on 1 October 2026, until July 2027. The Treasury expects the extension to take around £50 off the annual price cap in April 2027. The Budget’s other energy measures, including a £100 Household Energy Payment from January 2027 for homes in council tax bands A to D in England, are in our Budget story.

There is nothing to do today because of a headline, and no reason to switch or fix on the strength of one number. The next firm figure will be Ofgem’s, due by 25 November 2026.

Where things stood on 9 October 2026

The cap for 1 October to 31 December 2026 is £1,723 a year for a typical dual-fuel household paying by Direct Debit. Ofgem announced it on 26 August 2026: a rise of £60, or 4%, on the £1,663 cap in force until 30 September. That is a regulator’s decision, not a forecast.

The cap for 1 January to 31 March 2027 has not been set. Ofgem’s published schedule says it will be announced by 25 November 2026, and Ofgem says it may publish earlier if it needs to because of external reasons. Until then every January number is a forecast. As of 9 October 2026 the forecasts we could check at source run from £1,999 a year (Cornwall Insight, 30 September 2026) to £2,088 a year (E.ON Next, as of 5 October 2026), with EDF at £2,083 (its table, which the page dates 7 October 2026) and British Gas at £2,080 (1 October). That is a rise of between £276 and £365 on the October cap, or 16% to 21%. The Bank of England’s letter to the Chancellor of 17 September 2026 expects a rise of 24%, conditional on futures prices at 14 September. The cap changes on 1 January, 1 April, 1 July and 1 October, so November’s figure runs for three months.

What suppliers and ministers are saying. On 3 October Energy UK, the trade body for energy suppliers, asked the government to act before January: targeted support for the households struggling most with their bills, on top of the £150 Warm Home Discount; then, with Ofgem, a debt relief scheme for the worst affected; and moving more policy costs, such as the rest of the Renewables Obligation and Feed-in Tariff costs, off electricity bills and into general taxation. Its figure of around £2,100 for January is not a separate forecast: its explainer of 3 October says that if the cap rises as predicted, by around £350, it will reach nearly £2,100, and it puts the average of the January forecasts at £2,077. E.ON UK’s response to the October cap also asked for ‘targeted support and action to tackle growing energy debt’. EDF’s chief executive, Simone Rossi, said on the BBC’s Big Boss Interview podcast (BBC News, 30 September) that the UK is “walking into a second significant energy crisis” and called for the cut in VAT on electricity to be extended, and the Prime Minister said the government is ‘looking at any measure that can give people breathing space’.

What might come in the Budget. The Budget is on 28 October (HM Treasury, 31 July). On 7 October The Independent, citing The Guardian, and LBC reported, from unnamed sources, that the Chancellor, John Healey, is considering £1bn or more of extra support for lower-income households, most likely a further £100 on the £150 Warm Home Discount for people on certain benefits; LBC says the extra £100 would be paid for by taxpayers rather than through bills. LBC says final decisions have not been made, and the Treasury told The Independent it does not comment on reports or speculation. As of 9 October we had found no new support announced.

What is being shared

In mid-September 2026 a run of headlines appeared on January’s bills. On 17 September 2026 The Independent ran “Energy bills could rise more than £400 next year, new forecasts warn”. OilPrice.com, an energy news site, ran “UK Energy Bills Could Jump 25-30% From January as Gas Prices Soar” the same day, citing The Independent and Bloomberg Economics. Read quickly, they sound like a bill already set. The word doing the work in both is “could”, and the source behind both is a forecast, not the regulator.

The pound figure behind “more than £400” is £442: the gap between EDF’s forecast of £2,165 and the £1,723 October cap, which The Independent put at the equivalent of £36 a month. In the mid-September coverage we found, the £442 appears inside articles rather than as a national newspaper headline, and it always traces back to EDF. EDF has since cut it twice and then raised it by £7: its own forecast table put January at £2,098 on 22 September £2,076 by 28 September and £2,083 in its table updated on 5 October, £360 above the October cap. Its tables of 28 October put January at £2,189.

A second run began on 30 September 2026, when Cornwall Insight published a release headed “16% Price Cap Rise Forecast in January”. Montel News ran “EU gas crisis could drive up UK price cap 16% in new year” the same morning, and the PA news agency’s report, carried by regional papers, called it the biggest rise in four years. The 16% is Cornwall Insight’s forecast of £1,999 a year, £276 above the October cap. A different figure, £427, has also been quoted since mid-September. It is not Cornwall Insight’s: it is the gap between £1,723 and about £2,150, a forecast that OilPrice.com attributed to Bloomberg Economics on 17 September. We could not read Bloomberg’s own article, so we give it as reported and leave it out of the range above.

Who actually said what

Ofgem, which regulates energy in Great Britain, has said two things: the October to December 2026 cap is £1,723, and the January to March 2027 cap will be announced by 25 November 2026. On 26 August 2026 it put the October rise down to higher wholesale gas prices driven by the conflict in the Middle East and volatile global gas markets. It has published no January figure.

Cornwall Insight, the energy consultancy whose cap forecasts are widely quoted, raised its January figure to £1,999 on 30 September 2026, from the £1,872 it published on 26 August, the day of Ofgem’s October announcement. It puts the rise largely down to the conflict in the Middle East disrupting gas supplies, and says the European Union’s gas stores were about 65% full at the start of September, their lowest September level in 15 years. Because the period Ofgem measures for the January cap is nearly half over, Cornwall Insight says September’s price rises are already locked in, “making a January increase all but certain”; how big it is, the firm says, depends on how the conflict develops. It would be the largest rise in the cap since January 2023. Its principal consultant Dr Craig Lowrey had said in August that even an end to the conflict was unlikely to bring January bills down, and that the rises “have very little to do with what is happening in Britain”.

The Bank of England added its weight on 17 September 2026. CPI inflation was 3.1% in August 2026, more than a percentage point above the 2% target, so the Governor had to write an open letter to the Chancellor. The Bank said that, conditional on futures prices at 14 September, the Ofgem cap was expected to rise by 4% in the fourth quarter of 2026 and a further 24% in the first quarter of 2027. It gave a percentage, not a pound figure, tied to market prices on one day.

The forecasts, dated

The figures below are as read up to 9 October 2026; the forecasts as read on 2 November are in the update at the top of this page. Cornwall Insight, published 30 September 2026 and calculated from close-of-play market figures on 28 September: £1,999 a year (£1,999.28), a rise of £276, or 16%, on £1,723. This replaces its 26 August figure of £1,872 (a rise of £149, or 9%), which was calculated from prices on 25 August. Cornwall Insight has published no figure for April 2027, and says the January figure will not be confirmed until Ofgem announces it.

EDF, forecast table dated 7 October 2026 (read again on 9 October; the January figure is the one we first read on 5 October): £2,083 a year, a rise of £360, or 20.9%, on £1,723, with EDF rating its confidence “low”. That is £7 more than the £2,076 it gave by 28 September. When we read its table on 5 October, EDF said wholesale prices had risen over the previous week, on geopolitical uncertainty and lower-than-expected gas storage in the EU, and that they could move in either direction. Its earlier figures were £2,076 by 28 September, £2,098 on 22 September and £2,165 on 15 September, the one The Independent reported on 17 September and the source of the £442 in the mid-September headlines. MoneySavingExpert’s table gave that rise as 25.7%, while The Independent and OilPrice.com said 30%; by our arithmetic £442 on £1,723 is about 26%, and 30% matches the gap between £2,165 and the £1,663 cap in force until 30 September, not the October cap, so we give the pounds.

E.ON Next, prediction as of 5 October 2026: £2,088 a year, a rise of £365, or 21.2%, on £1,723, with E.ON Next rating its confidence “Lowest”, based on typical use of 2,500 kWh of electricity and 9,500 kWh of gas a year. That is £23 more than its 28 September figure of £2,065, and on 9 October the top of the range. When we read its page on 22 September it gave £2,131, dated 15 September.

British Gas, updated 1 October 2026: £2,080 a year, rounded up to the nearest £5, about £357, or 20.7%, above £1,723, with British Gas rating its own confidence “Very Low”. That is £35 lower than its 28 September figure of £2,115. British Gas says it updates its forecasts every week: on our readings it gave £2,135 on 21 September, and MoneySavingExpert’s table had it at £2,160 dated 14 September.

MoneySavingExpert’s comparison table, updated 6 October 2026 for the week starting 5 October, averages EDF, British Gas and E.ON Next at £2,084, a rise of 20.9%. It leaves out Cornwall Insight and Octopus Energy, which it says are updated less often. Octopus’s own table is still dated August 2026 (£1,959 for January), so we leave it out of the range above. For April to June 2027 the suppliers’ own tables, read on 2 November, give EDF £2,308 (28 October), British Gas £2,190 (30 October) and E.ON Next £2,358 (26 October), each rated “very low”, “Very Low” or “Lowest” in confidence.

Bank of England, letter dated 17 September 2026: a rise of 24% in the first quarter of 2027, conditional on futures prices at 14 September. The Bank gave no pound figure. Applied to £1,723, 24% is about £414, which would put the cap near £2,137; that arithmetic is ours, not the Bank’s.

How the cap is set, and why the forecasts move

The cap limits what suppliers can charge per unit of gas and electricity and per day in standing charges; £1,723 is what those limits add up to at typical use. Ofgem builds it from wholesale energy costs, network costs, policy costs (which include funding the Warm Home Discount), operating costs, a supplier margin and allowances for uncertain costs, calculated from costs observed in the period before each quarter, which is how January’s cap can be announced in November.

Wholesale costs are the part that moves. Ofgem’s own breakdown, published on 26 August 2026, puts wholesale costs at 47% of the October to December 2026 cap for a Direct Debit customer, up from 44% the quarter before. Cornwall Insight’s release the same day said the January figure will not be confirmed until November, leaving time for wholesale conditions to shift. A forecaster in August is estimating where prices will sit across the weeks Ofgem will measure; one in late September has seen more of them, and Cornwall Insight said on 30 September that the period being measured for January was nearly half over. That is why forecasts published in the same fortnight cluster, why they jump between months, and why none is final until Ofgem announces, by 25 November 2026.

The direction of travel is not in doubt. On 22 September the BBC reported that the wholesale price of natural gas had almost doubled in the UK and Europe since July, after disruption to oil and gas supplies through the Strait of Hormuz; the same day Ineos paused production at three chemical plants near Hull, blaming UK gas prices. Wholesale moves like that feed the cap with a lag, which is why every forecast for January is above October’s £1,723.

Two changes make comparisons with last winter less than like-for-like. From 1 July 2026 Ofgem’s typical household uses 2,500 kWh of electricity and 9,500 kWh of gas a year, down from 2,700 kWh and 11,500 kWh. That lowers the headline figure: on the old basis, Ofgem says the October cap would be £1,935 rather than £1,723, and Cornwall Insight’s August forecast for January would have been £2,107 rather than £1,872. Ofgem calls the typical-use figure a presentational tool, but says the change also affects unit rates, because suppliers recover certain costs over fewer units. And VAT on household electricity was removed from 1 October 2026, at first until 31 March 2027, so Ofgem’s £1,723 excludes VAT on electricity while still including 5% VAT on gas. The Bank of England said in its 17 September 2026 letter that the VAT change would take at least £45 off an average annual bill. The January cap sits inside that window. The Bank calls the removal temporary, and the government says it is funded for the 2026 to 2027 financial year, which ends on 31 March 2027; EDF’s chief executive asked on 30 September for the cut to be extended, and in the Budget on 28 October 2026 the government extended it until July 2027.

What it means for your household

If January lands near the latest supplier forecasts (EDF’s £2,189, tables updated 28 October; British Gas’s £2,185, 30 October; and E.ON Next’s £2,183, as of 26 October), a typical dual-fuel household paying by Direct Debit would pay roughly £460 to £466 a year more than under the October cap; near Cornwall Insight’s figure, calculated from prices on 28 September, about £276. Neither is your bill: the cap is an annual figure for a typical household, useful for comparing one cap with another, and your cost depends on what you use.

The cap applies in England, Scotland and Wales. Northern Ireland is outside it: energy prices there are regulated separately by the Utility Regulator, so the January figures on this page do not apply. Within Great Britain the £1,723 is an average: Ofgem bases it on Direct Debit rates across England, Scotland and Wales, and unit rates and standing charges vary across 14 regions, so typical households in different areas pay different amounts.

If money is already tight, the help schemes matter more than any forecast, and none of them waits for the cap. Our page on help with energy bills lists them, alongside the Priority Services Register.

What you can do before January

Fixed tariffs. A fixed deal holds your unit rates for its term. They are thin on the ground: on 18 September The Independent ran “Energy bill warning as only four fixed tariffs beat October Ofgem price cap”, and the count changes as suppliers reprice. MoneySavingExpert’s fixed-deal guide, correct as of 8 October, lists two standalone fixes below the October cap, about 3% and 1.2% below it for typical use paid by Direct Debit, both with exit fees; it gives no count for the whole market. Whether one suits you is a comparison of your own numbers: the fix’s rates and standing charges against the October cap rates and the forecast range, and any exit fee. The government expects suppliers to stop charging VAT on electricity from 1 October 2026 on fixed tariffs as well as variable ones. A fix that looks good against £2,189 looks different if the cap comes in nearer £1,999. Our guide to switching energy supplier explains how to read the offers; it is not advice on which to take, and nothing on this page is.

Meter readings. If you are on a standard variable tariff with a traditional meter, a reading on or close to 1 January 2027 lets your supplier bill energy used before that date at October’s rates and energy after it at January’s, rather than estimating the split. A working smart meter sends readings itself and a prepayment meter charges at the current rate as you go, so neither needs it. The routine is the one in our guide to the 1 October meter reading.

Help schemes. The Warm Home Discount reopens in October 2026: a one-off £150 off your electricity bill, applied by your supplier rather than paid to you (GOV.UK). You may be able to have it on your gas bill instead if the same supplier provides both, and prepayment customers may get it as a top-up voucher. In England and Wales most eligible households get it automatically through data matching; what counts is whether, on 23 August 2026, your supplier was in the scheme, you or your partner got a qualifying means-tested benefit, and one of you was named on the electricity bill. In Scotland, where Scottish Ministers set the eligibility under separate regulations, some households get it automatically and others must apply to their supplier. It is not available in Northern Ireland: GOV.UK points readers there to the Housing Executive’s Affordable Warmth scheme, which is a grant for insulation and heating improvements for low-income homes, not money off bills. Our pages cover the Warm Home Discount, the Winter Fuel Payment (in Scotland, the Pension Age Winter Heating Payment replaces it), the Cold Weather Payment (Scotland replaces it with its Winter Heating Payment, and Northern Ireland runs its own from 1 November 2026) and, in England, the Crisis and Resilience Fund, run by councils; Scotland has the Scottish Welfare Fund, Wales the Discretionary Assistance Fund and Northern Ireland Discretionary Support. For the low-cost side of winter, see keeping warm without heating.

Heating controls. Comparing smart thermostats before winter? Check the one you want works with your boiler and any hot water cylinder first: we set smart thermostats side by side on boiler compatibility.

What not to do

Do not treat any January figure as settled before Ofgem announces it (due by 25 November 2026). The forecasts here are honest estimates by people who watch the wholesale market for a living, and they were still moving week to week in September: EDF cut its own figure by £67 on 22 September 2026 and by a further £22 on 28 September, British Gas lowered its own by £80 between 14 September and 1 October, and Cornwall Insight raised its figure by £127 between 26 August and 30 September.

Do not fix, switch or cancel your Direct Debit on the strength of one headline. The £469 in Yorkshire Live’s headline of 1 November and the £442 in September’s are both EDF forecasts, from different weeks, and EDF’s figure has changed since each; on 2 November 2026 the forecasts we could check at source put January between £276 (Cornwall Insight, prices at 28 September) and £466 (EDF, tables updated 28 October) above the October cap. Compare any offer with your own usage and the October rates, not the largest number in the news.

Do not read a price forecast as a supply warning. The forecasts are about what gas will cost: Ofgem ties the October rise to wholesale gas prices driven by the Middle East conflict, and Cornwall Insight points to global markets and low gas stocks, particularly in Continental Europe. A higher price is not the same as a shortage. And do not skip help you are entitled to because the headlines talk in averages: none of the schemes above depends on where the cap lands. The Warm Home Discount reopens in October and Cold Weather Payments cover 1 November 2026 to 31 March 2027, whatever the cap turns out to be.