Octopus overtakes British Gas as the UK's biggest household energy supplier
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British Gas has been toppled as the country’s biggest domestic energy supplier almost four decades after the former state monopoly was privatised by Margaret Thatcher. Latest figures from analysts Cornwall Insights show that relative upstart Octopus Energy now holds the biggest market share with 23.7% less than a decade after it was founded in 2015.
That puts it 0.6% ahead of British Gas, which has seen it once unassailable share steadily decline since competition was introduced into the domestic and electricity markets in the early 1990s. It is the first time the top position in the household sector has changed since the energy retail market opened for competition in the ‘90s paving the way for dominance by the so called “big six”.
British Gas, now owned by energy giant Centrica, was sold to investors in 1986 after the famous “Tell Sid” marketing campaign fot its shares. In its quarterly Domestic Energy Market Share Survey Cornwall Insights said Octopus now serves 12.9 million meters, around a quarter of the UK total. Octopus led the switching market in 2024, with nearly one million customers choosing to join from other suppliers.
Dan Morris, CEO at Cornwall Insight, said: “This is quite honestly the biggest development in the domestic retail energy market since it opened. Octopus Energy started from zero market share in 2015 and has worked its way up to the top spot on this measure in less than a decade. This is a notable achievement in the highly competitive and tightly regulated UK supplier market.”.
