Official Statistics

DESNZ Public Attitudes Tracker: Headline findings, Summer 2025, UK

Published 28 October 2025

The DESNZ Public Attitudes Tracker (PAT) is a nationally representative annual survey of adults (aged 16+) in the UK that tracks public awareness, attitudes and behaviours relating to the policies of the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ), such as energy and climate change.

This report provides a summary of the headline findings from the Summer 2025 wave of the Tracker, which ran from 8 July to 13 August 2025.

The Summer 2025 wave is the fourteenth wave in a series of surveys which began in Autumn 2021. Between Autumn 2021 and Summer 2023, surveys were conducted every quarter, although there was no data collection in Autumn 2023. From Spring 2024, the survey moved to a triannual design with waves conducted every Spring, Summer and Winter.

Headline findings for Summer 2025

Two summary self-reported measures are used in this report:

• ‘Awareness’ encompasses all respondents who said they had heard of a particular concept or technology, including those who said they know: ‘hardly anything but I’ve heard of this’, ‘a little’, ‘a fair amount’ or ‘a lot’
• ‘Knowledge’ encompasses those who said that they know ‘a fair amount’ or ‘a lot’ about a topic

Net zero and climate change

Overall levels of concern about climate change have increased since Spring 2025, from 77% to 79% in Summer 2025. Over the longer term, levels of concern have decreased from 85% in Autumn 2021.

Overall awareness of Net Zero returned to 91% in Summer 2025, a slight increase since Spring 2025 (89%). Knowledge of Net Zero has remained stable since Winter 2024, with 53% saying they knew a lot or a fair amount.

Confidence in the UK’s ability to meet the Net Zero target by 2050 was lower than in Summer 2024, returning to Summer 2023 baseline levels: 17% said they were very or fairly confident, down from 20% in Summer 2024. Additionally, 72% said they were not very or not at all confident, up from 69% in Summer 2024.

Perceptions of the expected impacts of Net Zero on the UK economy were mixed, with people being more negative (41%) than positive (22%) in the short term (1-2 years). However, in the long term (10+ years), expectations were more positive (49%) than negative (22%). The proportion expecting a negative impact has increased since Summer 2024 in both the short term (41%, up from 37%) and long term (22%, up from 20%).

In the short term, 69% expected the transition to Net Zero to increase their living expenses (up from 65%), with 7% saying they expected a decrease. In the long term, 50% expected an increase in living expenses and 25% expected a decrease.

Renewable energy

80% supported the use of renewable energy, with opposition remaining stable at 4% (both unchanged from Spring 2025). Over time, support for renewable energy has declined from 87% at the start of the time series in Autumn 2021.

A lower proportion of people said they would be happy for an onshore wind farm to be constructed in their local area (35% in Summer 2025, down from 37% in Spring 2025). However, there has been a corresponding increase in those saying they wouldn’t mind either way (34%, up from 31% in Spring 2025) and a decrease in those saying they would be unhappy (14%, down from 18% in Spring 2025).

When asked about the construction of a solar farm in their local area, 43% said they would be happy about this (down from 47% in Spring 2025). A lower proportion said they would be unhappy (14%) and over a third said they wouldn’t mind either way (32%, up from 29% in Spring 2025).

When asked what benefits would make people more likely to support new renewable energy infrastructure in their local area, the most common response was energy bill discounts (62%), followed by funding for community projects (59%), local jobs (58%), and shared ownership opportunities (34%). 11% said none of these would make them more likely to support new renewable energy infrastructure in their local area.

Awareness of GBE remained stable at 59%, with 13% saying they knew a lot or a fair amount. Awareness of the Clean Power 2030 target also remained stable at 84%, with an increase in those saying they knew a lot or a fair amount (33%, up from 29% in Spring 2025).

Energy infrastructure and energy security

When asked about energy security concerns in the next 10-20 years, people were most concerned about steep rises in energy prices (91%), followed by insufficient investment in alternative sources of energy (82%). A slightly lower proportion were concerned about more frequent power cuts (78%), over-dependence on energy from other countries (78%) and supplies of fossil fuels not being sufficient (73%).

81% of people said they were aware of the need to build more electricity network infrastructure, up from 75% in Winter 2024 and reaching the highest level so far. Knowledge about this topic also increased between Winter 2024 and Summer 2025, from 21% to 27%.

18% said they would be happy to have new electricity network infrastructure built in their local area (down from 23% in Summer 2024), with a higher proportion saying they would be unhappy about this (32%, up from 30% in Summer 2024). A substantial proportion said they wouldn’t mind either way (35%).

The most common reasons for expressing support for new local electricity network infrastructure were using more sustainable sources of power (62%) and the need to update existing infrastructure (53%). The most common reasons for being unhappy about this included potential impacts on the view (60%) and on local wildlife (57%).

Heat and energy use in the home

88% of people said they were aware of the need to change the way homes and buildings are heated to reach the Net Zero target, while 42% said they knew a lot or a fair amount about this. This has remained broadly stable since Summer 2022.

Awareness of heat pumps has declined since Spring 2025; from 79% to 76% for air source heat pumps and from 76% to 70% for ground source heat pumps. However, awareness has increased since this time series started in Winter 2021, from 71% and 67% for air source and ground source heat pumps respectively.

23% of owner occupiers said they already have or were likely to install an air source heat pump, while 14% said this for ground source heat pumps (up from 19% and 13% respectively when the time series started in Winter 2021). However, a higher proportion of owner occupiers said they were not likely to install an air source heat pump (49%) or ground source heat pump (55%).

Energy bills and tariffs

26% of people said they gave a lot of thought to saving energy in the home, down from 31% in Spring 2025 (this decline could in part be a seasonal effect). People finding it difficult to get by financially were more likely to have given this a lot of thought (35%) than those who felt they were doing alright or living comfortably (22%).

Most people (96%) said they were aware of the most effective ways to reduce energy, while 60% thought they knew a lot or a fair amount (up from 54% in Summer 2024).

47% were worried about paying their energy bills in the last three months (down from 52% in Spring 2025), continuing a downward trend in concern since Spring 2023 when 66% were concerned. Again, there may be a seasonal effect when comparing levels of concern in Spring and Summer.

Just under half of people reported being comfortable with suppliers collecting data on the use of their smart appliances (49%) or controlling the times at which the smart appliance comes on (45%). In contrast, 42% reported not being comfortable with suppliers collecting data and 49% reported not being comfortable with control over the times in which the smart appliance comes on.

Notes

The survey is run by Verian on behalf of the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero.

The PAT is a household self-completion survey that uses a ‘push to web’ methodology. Respondents can choose to complete the survey online or use a paper questionnaire.

In this publication, differences between groups are only reported where they are statistically significant at the 95% confidence interval level.

For further information about the technical details of the survey please refer to the Technical overview.