One in five households in the UK lives within the private rented sector (PRS), yet accounts for only 11% of all installed domestic heat pumps. This disparity may come from the lack of perceived rewards from installing a heat pump for landlords, who typically shoulder the upfront costs of installation without living with the benefits. This tension, known as the split incentive, has slowed down decarbonisation in the PRS.

Low heat pump uptake also likely owes to the different composition of housing in the PRS, where flats are overrepresented. For example, in England, purpose-built flats make up 29% of dwellings and converted flats 12%, when only 21.7% of Census respondents in England and Wales report living in a flat, maisonette or apartment. However, a large share (34%) of privately rented homes are terraced houses, where low-carbon heating sources are more likely to be suitable options. In the long term, this situation increases the risk of leaving behind a cohort of households that may find themselves facing more expensive bills due to volatile gas prices. Worryingly, the English Private Landlords Survey found that 65% of landlords with properties under EPC D stated they did not plan to upgrade their properties to make them more energy efficient. Private landlords with smaller portfolios and limited cash flow, restricting their ability to conduct extensive upgrades, are also likely to struggle to meet the demands of decarbonisation.

In this report, we focus on individual landlords with fewer than 10 properties, who make up a large share of private landlords. In England, for example, they account for 88% of landlords and 63% of tenancies according to the English Private Landlord Survey. This project sought to explore whether variables such as portfolio size, landlords’ financial circumstances and environmental motivations could play a part in small landlords’ perception and willingness to install low-carbon heating technologies in their rental properties, and what services or support might incentivise uptake. Using interviews helped highlight the complexities of landlords’ positions, including reflecting contradictions between stated environmental beliefs and reticence to enact them in their rental properties if it meant additional investments, even as they hold all the levers to upgrade the properties their tenants live in, highlighting the need for legislative action to drive change. For this phase of the project, we did not engage with tenants, as tenants currently do not have the means to install heat pumps in properties of their own accord.

Previous research has explored the general problem of retrofitting the PRS (see Centrica and National Retrofit Hub); our project focused on understanding barriers faced by landlords in the context of heat pump installation, where the benefits to tenants may be less clear. In the absence of levy reform, the high price of electricity relative to gas could result in higher bills for tenants, particularly those who are currently underheating their homes to save money.

We interviewed 13 landlords in order to understand their practical concerns and how they would approach heat pump installation in their rental properties. The interviews included discussions about their experiences of renting property and making them more energy efficient, including questions about their awareness of their properties’ carbon emissions. To unpack the practicalities of sourcing, installing, and maintaining a heat pump, we also used a hypothetical scenario asking landlords what they would do if they were required to install a heat pump in their rental properties by 2030. Finally, we produced personas based on desk-based research and refined them through exploration of our interview findings.

While these findings will require further validation and were based on a small number of interviewees, this project allowed us to develop an understanding of how landlords’ individual financial strategies and motives could impact their willingness to fit heat pumps in their rental properties. This research aims to support future engagement with this cohort, as policymakers give renewed attention to the problem of decarbonising the PRS.

A changing landscape

The UK and Scottish Governments are bringing new legislation to decarbonise the PRS, address fuel poverty among private tenants, and increase tenants’ protection. Legislation was a key component in our interviews, and the landlords we interviewed often referred to evolving regulatory contexts and expectations.

Currently, all rental properties are required to have an up-to-date Energy Performance Certificate (EPC), but regulations differ across Great Britain’s nations. While private tenants comprise 19% of homes, they account for 35% of fuel-poor households in England. The PRS lags behind the social rented sector on energy efficiency: 55% of rented households fall below EPC C in England, and 14% of privately rented homes in Scotland fall under band E or below, the highest concentration of low efficiency homes across tenure types.

Since April 2020, landlords in England and Wales cannot let a property with an EPC below Band E, unless they register an exemption on the basis that upgrading the property would exceed the £3,500 statutory cost cap. The UK Government’s May 2025 consultation on new Minimum Energy Efficiency Standards (MEES) explored bringing most properties in the PRS to Band C or above by 2030, with a £15,000 cost cap for exemptions. The Scottish Government plans to introduce its own MEES to the PRS for the first time, aiming for band C or above by 2033 (2028 onwards for new tenancies), with a cost cap of £10,000.

The new standards will be brought in alongside new EPC regulations. Current EPCs’ cost-based approach does not incentivise low-carbon heating uptake, as a heat pump’s higher projected running costs may bring down a house’s EPC. The UK Government’s proposals for a reformed EPC introduce new metrics, including a heating system’s environmental impact. Likewise, in Scotland, new EPC regulations will be rolled out in 2026, with new ratings for fabric, heating system (including both a system’s emissions and its efficiency) and cost.

Passed into law in October 2025, the Renters’ Rights Bill will also place new obligations on English landlords, including an end to Section 21 evictions, registration with a Private Rented Sector Database, a Decent Home Standard, imposing a timeframe on urgent repairs to hazardous homes, and bolstering tenants’ rights against discrimination and unfair practices.

The taxation regime for landlords has also evolved considerably. Since 2017, landlords can no longer declare mortgage interest as a finance cost against their income, but are instead eligible for some tax relief schemes. For example, interest payments on rental mortgages are deductible up to the basic tax rate of 20%. They can also claim relief under the ‘Replacement of Domestic Items’ scheme - but this only covers like-for-like replacements rather than upgrades.

What support can landlords access?

To upgrade their properties, landlords currently have access to a range of grants and funding streams, but this is sometimes means-restricted and varies across the UK. In England and Wales, landlords can access the Boiler Upgrade Scheme (BUS), the Energy Company Obligation (ECO, tenant-means-tested) and the Great British Insulation Scheme (GBIS). In England, the Warm Homes: Local Grant gives access to free energy efficiency upgrades for rented homes with an EPC of D or under. In Scotland, landlords are eligible for the Home Energy Scotland Loan, with 0% loans available for landlords with up to 5 properties and loans at 3.5% APR for landlords with a portfolio of 5 properties or above. To reach its decarbonisation targets, the UK Government has indicated that support for landlords will also be part of its Warm Homes Plan, due to be published in the autumn of 2025.

Our research questions

This changing context lends further relevance and urgency to the problem of decarbonising the rental sector: it is urgent for governments to find the right levers in order to avoid penalising tenants amidst a surge in rent prices and support the rollout of heat pumps across all sections of society.

At this crucial time for the sector, we explored the following questions.

1. How do landlords perceive decarbonisation in the private rental sector, and their own role in this process?
2. What do they view as the main legislative, systemic and practical barriers or potential enablers to heat decarbonisation in their own properties?
3. How do perceptions of decarbonisation and its barriers/enablers vary with respect to landlords' circumstances (eg, motivations, property/tenant types, financial arrangements, etc)?
4. How do challenges (and potential solutions) in the private rental sector compare to those in other housing sectors?

We analyse our interviewees’ current approach to decarbonisation and their understanding of the process, before delving into concerns surrounding heat pump installation.

We have separated this into three sections.

1. Experiences of decarbonisation
2. Response to our hypothetical scenario
3. Landlord personas

The following section introduces our participants.

One important assumption underlying our research was that small portfolio landlords faced different pressures and needs than large portfolio and institutional ones. We wanted to understand how parameters such as portfolio size, environmental attitudes and debt could impact interviewees’ experiences. In total, we interviewed 13 participants for this project, with rental portfolios ranging between one and eight properties. Seven had only one property, while the other half of the cohort had between two and four or four and 8, with 12 being from England and one based in Scotland.

During the interviews, we first asked participants about their general experience as landlords, before moving on to their experiences with energy efficiency measures, and finally testing their response to the heat pump adoption scenario.

Approach to property management

When asked to describe their professions, 8 respondents described themselves as ‘landlords’ (either as their sole occupation or alongside another job). While an imperfect indicator, this suggested at least some degree of professional identity, a feature observed in all landlords with multiple properties we interviewed. By contrast, most single property landlords we interviewed reported a second profession and used their rental property as a side income.

In practice, those interviewees who identified as professional landlords were also more likely (in half the cases) to mention additional indicators of professionalisation, including access to specialist professions and networks. For example, one HMO landlord with multiple properties (Ted) mentioned his membership of Platinum Property Partners, an energy efficiency expert’s advice services and the Landlords National Purchasing Group (LNPG), through which he could access loans from other members; another had access to an accountant. While being a landlord was not his main source of income, Matthew was a letting agent who also adopted a more professionalised approach and outlook to his rental.

The professional landlords in our cohort often mentioned drawing on family as a source of support for maintenance and advice. For example, Hussein, Rhoda and Lauren all came from families who worked in a field related to property development or included landlords, and relied on their advice and services. Mary relied on her former spouse for help with doing repairs and upgrades to the property.

The majority of the landlords we spoke to (8 out of 13 interviewees) either managed their properties directly or only used letting agents on an occasional basis, either to look after a property located too far from their home (Ted) or after a breakdown in communication (Rhoda). The others relied on agents for all management and tenant relations, with 4 using agents to manage their properties and 1 to find tenants, suggesting landlords using letting agents were slightly overrepresented in our cohort. The findings of the English Private Landlords Survey show that a little under half of landlords (43%) report using an agent for letting services, but only one in five (18%) use an agent for management services. 63% of landlords with five or more properties use letting agents for letting services, a proportion that falls to 50% for landlords with two to four properties and only 30% of landlords with one property.

The legislative context impacted our interviewees’ future plans

Many interviewees felt negatively impacted by changing legislation, and raised the looming prospect of changing MEES in England, Wales and Scotland, and the Renters’ Rights Bill.

Multiple participants expressed fairly negative sentiment towards changes in legislation, with the exception of Viola, who was unaware of upcoming reforms, possibly due to relying on a letting agent for compliance. Participants often felt legislation was being ‘done’ to them. Amy, for example, told us: ‘I think government wants rid of landlords like me’. Four interviewees also argued these changes, coupled with rises in interest rates and a less favourable fiscal context, were driving them to make plans to sell or size down their portfolio, including Amy, who stated: ‘They're just making it too hard, the government.’.

This is consistent with existing evidence that English landlords’ concerns about tax, legislation and the profitability of their portfolio are leading them to plan to either sell up or decrease their number of rental properties, with decreasing numbers of respondents stating they were planning to relet their properties after their current tenancies end, from 75% in 2018 to 59% in 2024. It is difficult to gauge whether all landlords who say they plan to sell their properties will, and they may well sell to other landlords. In Scotland, the Scottish Household Survey shows the number of households reporting living in privately rented homes has decreased, from its peak of 15% in 2017 to 13% in 2023, although several underlying causes may have led to this outcome. In our interviews, for example, some landlords also discussed plans to sell their properties due to personal circumstances, such as a separation from a partner or nearing retirement.

The issue of landlords’ market exit has recently garnered political salience, with some organisations like the National Residential Landlords Association (NRLA), for example, reporting an increase in landlords selling their homes, an outcome that is frequently used as an argument to counter potential regulations. Several of our interviewees mentioned relying on landlords’ forums, with one mentioning the NRLA by name, and it is therefore highly likely that at least some of their views on government actions reflect their membership of this or other landlord bodies. For example, some landlords we interviewed discussed the adverse effect of landlords selling on their tenants, particularly if they were low-income, like Amy’s, who added: ‘I mean [my tenants] will struggle if I have to sell.’

We heard from some interviewees the view that landlords provide a necessary service, and that their exit would bring negative consequences - for example, Lauren, who stated: ‘I just feel like they don’t want landlords to exist. Where are people going to live?’

This view was also linked to interviewees’ underlying concerns about the ongoing profitability of their investment. Participants’ income ranged from a hundred per month to around £6,000 a year. This was the case for Valerie, for example, who reported being disappointed with her returns compared to investments.

The cost of the MEES regulations was the most frequent objection raised by landlords we interviewed, like Amy, who said, ‘But if they wanted me to spend 10,000 pounds on them, then I'll sell it.’ The proportionality of the legislation was another topic of criticism. For example, Amy had renovated her properties and felt the new regulations were excessive: ‘I've done everything possible that I can do in terms of like insulation, new boilers, double glazing.’ The new expectations placed on landlords sometimes caused concerns in some interviewees who worried about ‘getting it wrong’ or not meeting the new standards, like Valerie: ‘We will sell, because there's more regulations coming in. I'm also nervous that I might get it wrong.’

A perceived discrepancy between the government’s approach to the owner-occupied sector, compared to the PRS, was another source of dissatisfaction and tension. For example, Amy told us she was frustrated that new regulations meant landlords would be made to carry out works they would not have to do in their own homes: ‘The legislation is unreasonable. It goes above and beyond what... if you were living in it yourself? You wouldn't be doing it.’. Among the participants, Amy was one of a number of landlords we spoke to who expressed her intention to sell, and it is therefore unsurprising that her statements would reflect resentment towards regulations. However, this quote reflects a dynamic present in some other interviews: interviewees seeing themselves as providing a service sometimes seemed to resent the expectations and duties associated with running a business.

Attitudes to the Renters’ Rights Bill varied, with some even expressing support for legislation to curb poor behaviour from ‘unscrupulous people’, like Bea, who was also a tenant herself. However, most landlords we spoke to were more overtly negative in their response, and several saw the legislation as being against them. For example, Ted argued that the Renters’ Rights Bill was ‘not good for landlords, so I potentially might sell one or two of my buy-to-lets… partly driven by the lower returns’, while Hussein felt that ‘all the power is with the tenants’. Others also suggested that the legislation was likely to have a negative impact on tenants, like Matthew, who told us the ‘exodus of landlords’ caused by the legislation would end up ‘costing tenants more money, because it's a supply and demand situation.’

Landlords reported diminishing returns on their properties

Making a good investment was a key motivator to our interviewees, who either viewed their property as a direct income or to increase their retirement income. Many were concerned with diminishing returns, which they often linked to rises in interest rates and changes in taxation. One interviewee, Hussein, also mentioned concerns around capital gains tax and inheritance. In total, ten out of our interviewees reported a decrease in their income, with two planning to increase rents as a result. For example, Louis told us he could not make up for the shortfall when his mortgage repayments increased, despite increasing his rent by 10%: ‘10% didn't go up to the 90 pounds increase in the mortgage monthly expenditure.’ Matthew and William both described this change as having taken place in the last year, due to increases to their mortgage rates, while Dean claimed it had taken place ‘in the last few years’, citing changes to taxation and allowances which took place from 2017.

Some of the landlords we spoke to discussed using retrofit to command a higher rent: for example, Hussein and Ted had both modernised their properties to a high standard in order to target more affluent tenants. Ted explained his strategy was to renovate his properties so they would be ‘pretty high spec’ and rented out primarily to professionals. Despite this approach, he explained, his income had diminished: ’interest rates have gone up, so the yields used to be a lot better’.

With rents rising faster than inflation, however, this situation has worrying implications for tenants, particularly those on lower incomes. A few interviewees mentioned balancing increased outgoings with their awareness of the cost of living crisis and its impact on tenants. Amy, for example, claimed to have kept rents intentionally below market levels due to having low-income tenants. She was negatively affected by the new rules on tax relief due to being in the 40% taxation bracket, and felt the new rules brought little financial benefit to the government when compared with their potential impact on tenants. She described how ‘I just think for what benefit? For a couple of 100 quid extra. I'm going to drive out tenants that've been in 15 years.’ Similarly, when discussing her income, Valerie expressed a mix of discomfort at the prospect of putting up the rent and passing on costs to her long-term tenants (‘You know I can't pass all that on to my tenant, you know, so… Well, it's just unfair.’) but also an admission that ‘people don’t become landlords as charity’. Two landlords, Lauren and Valerie, indicated that they intended to increase rents.

After asking our interviewees about their experience as landlords, we delved into the topic of energy efficiency upgrades. Our conversations suggested that while most landlords we spoke to had some experience with fitting energy efficiency measures, such as insulation, they were more reticent with installing other technologies, such as solar panels in their rentals, even if they had already installed them in their own homes. Less professionalised interviewees also showed low levels of awareness about funding, and were more likely to outsource thinking about energy efficiency to letting agents.

EPCs as a tool for understanding energy efficiency

When asked about what measures they had taken to understand the carbon emissions generated by their rental properties, our interviewees’ first response was often to mention their property’s EPC, even if they could not always remember their property’s exact rating during our interviews.

EPCs were used as a guide to upgrade one’s property: ‘EPCs are a good sort of thing to look at and get an idea of where you need to focus on.’ (Valerie). Interviewees generally showed awareness of regulations, and several reported having gone above the current threshold of E, even if they could not always recall their exact EPC. For example, Amy told us her home exceeded current regulations: ‘They're all D or above and the majority are C, but, like, you know I've got a couple of old terraces, and I think I don't know how they'd get [more energy efficient]’. Several interviewees felt that they had already taken the measures they could, within their budget, and were daunted by the cost and complexity of further investments to reach an EPC C.

In Scotland, where MEES regulations have not yet been introduced for the private rental sector, bringing homes to an EPC C may represent a bigger jump – but our interviewee, Rhoda, also reported having gone above and beyond regulatory obligations with her own properties: ‘Obviously, I'm aware that the EPC ratings are going to become mandatory, and it's gonna have to be a C, although I'm not sure when that's going to be in Scotland. (...) But anyway, I've done it already, so it doesn't matter.’

What kind of energy efficiency improvements have landlords made to their rental properties?

Most of our interviewees had implemented some energy efficiency measures in their properties, often motivated by compliance. Rather than reducing carbon emissions, energy efficiency measures were primarily motivated by a desire to futureproof the property, offer a decent housing standard, keep bills lower, attract wealthier or longer-term tenants, and maximise return on investment while also increasing the property’s value. A lot of the landlords we spoke to expressed a desire to improve their property’s longevity with good quality materials in order to not have to go through that process again, balancing costs and quality: ‘I wanted to do it once, and then not have to do it for years.’ (Viola).

Insulation was the most frequently mentioned form of energy efficiency improvement adopted by participants for their rental properties, followed by a new boiler, double glazing, new doors and windows and thermostats. One landlord (Hussein) had also fitted his property with LED lighting. Notably, landlords who mentioned having strong environmental motivations (scoring three or above in our questionnaire) were not necessarily the ones who had done the most upgrades to their properties, and highly professionalised participants like Ted and Hussein reported having done extensive works to their property to bring them to a high standard, although only Ted expressed a high degree of willingness to invest in his property to make it greener.

Scotland-based Rhoda stood out as a particularly eco-conscious landlord. Rhoda had equipped three of her rental properties with solar panels that utilised the Feed-in-Tariff (FiT). This arrangement meant that Rhoda allowed her tenants to directly consume electricity from the solar panels, while she profited from any excess being sold back to the grid. Such funds, while not specifically targeted at landlords, can counter the split incentive effect by incentivising energy efficiency and decarbonisation measures. While FiT is now closed to new entrants, new installations can still benefit from the Smart Export Guarantee (SEG) from licensed providers. She also reported using her own home as a test bed before making additions to her tenants’ homes, and helping them maximise the efficiency of their solar technologies: ‘I have 3 tenants with solar panels, and I have to check in every 3 months to get meter reading, so I'll check in to see, can I get a reading? And you know, is everything okay? And give a bit of advice on how to make the most of it’. This was also motivated by a desire to help her tenants keep their bills low. Rhoda was the only landlord interviewed to have fitted this technology in her rental, and went above and beyond in attempting to improve her tenants’ quality of life (including paying towards tenants’ holidays when she needed to do extensive works to the property).

One hypothesis we formed at the start of the project was that landlords installing ‘green’ technologies in their own homes would be more likely to do so in their rental properties, but we did not necessarily find this to be the case across our interviewees. Instead, landlords we spoke to seemed to separate the application of their environmental beliefs to their own properties from their approach to renovating their rentals, where cost was of greater concern. Of the four interviewees who either told us in the survey or interview that they had equipped their personal homes or camper van with batteries and solar panels, only one had done the same to their rental properties. For example, Valerie explained that her environmentally conscious partner would ‘feel more comfortable, paying more and knowing that it was more environmentally friendly’ for measures to their rental properties and that they had fitted solar panels into their own property. She told us they might consider doing the same in their rental properties, provided they could access tax relief schemes or other incentives: ‘We would definitely look into solar panels. If it was some kind of tax [of that] thing that you know landlords could do, then we probably could look into doing something like that.’ However, when discussing equipping her rental with solar panels, she felt the upfront cost was too much for her to install them: ‘Solar panels may help, but then it would probably cost me thousands to put solar panels on their roof. Well, you know, what do I do instead? Just give them thousands towards a heating bill? I don't know. I mean, it's just… where do you stop?’. Rhoda was the only interviewee to mention FiT, and none mentioned SEG.

Approaches to energy efficiency measures

Among our interviewees, landlords who identified as professionals were more likely to take a strategic approach to retrofitting their rental, either conducting work after purchasing their property or when it was empty. Two landlords we spoke to (Matthew and Ted) had used the services of energy surveyors who provided assessments of energy efficiency measures and helped them renovate their properties in order to plan ahead. Ted hired an assessor upon purchase to devise a strategy to raise his property’s EPC and invested £10,000 to renovate a house he wanted to turn into an HMO, with an aim to ‘future-proof it’. He explained how he had prioritised measures: ‘We ran through what the various measures would do in terms of raising the EPC and where I’d get the biggest bang for my buck and the real big one was insulating the walls internally.’ Others like Rhoda or Amy would prioritise purchasing cheaper properties to renovate and rent them out. Amy, for example, told us: ‘We've bought a couple of repossessions or like they've needed like major work. So we tend to do it all before the move-in like we'll renovate a property’.

By contrast, landlords in our group who did not manage their properties themselves mostly renovated their properties on a more reactive basis. For example, Viola, who handed over all upgrades to her letting agent, relied on her agency to warn her of any works needing to be done: ‘We don't really change anything unless it's like really broken or needs changing.’

Balancing costs and income

Cost was the top concern of the landlords we surveyed when it came to fitting homes with energy efficiency upgrades. For participants with a smaller portfolio, the need to increase the efficiency of the property had to be balanced with keeping costs low, and this could outweigh stated environmental preferences. For example, Lauren reported high levels of environmental motivation but expressed her reticence at the upfront cost of low-carbon technologies: ‘even with my own home that I live in, you know, ideally, it would be great to have solar panels and everything, ticking all the boxes for carbon emissions and climate change and everything. But it's just so expensive.’

The period required to secure a return on their investment was another concern. For example, Matthew highlighted that the payback period for technologies like heat pumps and solar panels was too long to be attractive, worrying about the technologies’ lifespan compared to their payback period: ‘It's taking you a long time to actually get that money back. [...] Is that ground source heat pump still going to be going in 10 years? Are the solar panels on your roof still going to be doing what they're meant to be doing in 10 years?’

In our cohort, it transpired that, for the more professionalised landlords willing to upgrade their properties, energy efficiency upgrades are part of a suite of investments to optimise the quality and longevity of their rental and guarantee a good return on investment. This dynamic was most visible in the case of Ted, who explained he had ‘looked at energy saving initiatives for the other two HMOs’ but that he was not impressed by the return on investment as he would be ‘looking at a 10-year payback.’

The ability to have a longer outlook set Ted apart from smaller portfolio participants who approached their rental income on a year-by-year basis, like Valerie: ‘But you've only got a certain amount of money that you can spend on these sorts of things, because otherwise… It's not worth doing; it becomes negligible. [...] if you, you know, you’re perhaps getting a thousand pounds a month, and your mortgage is 350 pounds, and then you've… all of a sudden, you've put in a heat source pump [sic] and it's cost you thousands.’

Funding and finance

The landlords we spoke to showed mixed levels of awareness around grants and funding they could access to support energy efficiency upgrades. Levels of awareness and understanding tended to be lower in interviewees who had outsourced the management of their property to a letting agent, and were more likely to rely on them to let them know about opportunities.

Several of the landlords we surveyed were aware of means-tested funding, and having a tenant on benefits had encouraged several interviewees to look into whether they could use means-tested funding in the past. Rhoda and Matthew, who had successfully used government funding due to having tenants on benefits, showed the highest levels of awareness and a proactive approach to funding, with Rhoda, in particular, showing an open-minded approach to letting her tenants request energy efficiency upgrades in her rental properties. However, most landlords we interviewed, even when more professionalised, expressed levels of uncertainty around the purpose and eligibility criteria of funding schemes, sometimes assuming from the outset that they would not be eligible themselves due to being landlords. For example, some interviewees were either confused by, or assumed that landlords would not be eligible for, the Boiler Upgrade Scheme (BUS), as was the case with Mary, who seemed to confuse the BUS with a boiler scrappage scheme: ‘If I had an old boiler in my house, they would change it free, because it's my property. But if you rent out a house, those schemes don't… aren't extended to rental properties’.

We also encountered some levels of scepticism from landlords who had previously been frustrated in their attempts to find funding, including Ted and Amy. In addition to this, interviewees such as Dean and Rhoda were critical of scheme guarantees following negative experiences. For example, Dean described how he had commissioned insulation and solar thermal (‘hot water solar’), via the previously available funding from the Green Homes Grant, but felt that ‘in practice we've been let down by the various grant schemes’. A shortage in materials during the pandemic led him to miss the deadline for the work’s completion, causing the grant to be withdrawn. The withdrawal of the grant resulted in Dean having to reduce the extent of the work (which included other home renovations). Rhoda mentioned a negative experience with one of her properties, which had been fitted with non-breathable insulation under the Warmer Homes Scotland scheme, which turned out to be unsuitable for her property, only to find no guarantee or support with remediation was available when her tenant moved on and the company that had delivered the works closed down.

How do landlords consider tenants when doing energy efficiency modifications to their properties?

The majority of the landlords we interviewed did not see energy efficiency improvements as direct selling points from a tenant’s perspective, but rather part of a baseline offer to retain tenants, with Rhoda noting that, even if she advertised improvements to the house and had to include the property’s EPC in adverts, prospective tenants were usually more interested in the cost of bills: ‘other than, what are the bills like in this house or this flat [...]. That's about the only question I get asked.’ Similarly, William thought a well-insulated house was a baseline expectation for his wealthier tenants, and had improved his properties accordingly: ‘Tenants would expect as much insulation as possible. We try and position ourselves in the upper quartile, so those sorts of things would be standard, really, and we can command a higher rent than we could if the place wasn't modernised.’

One question we considered was whether landlords would be more likely to install low-carbon technology upgrades if prompted to do so by tenants. Some landlords we surveyed mentioned being open to having tenants contribute to the upfront cost of energy efficiency modifications, as was the case with Lauren, when asked how she would reply to a hypothetical request from tenants to upgrade her property to lower its carbon footprint: ‘Maybe if they offered to contribute or pay half or something.’ Not all interviewees, however, were comfortable with the option of asking tenants to contribute to energy efficiency upgrades. For example, Amy felt that this solution ‘leaves the door wide open then for issues when you're trying to sell, because what they're saying is they've invested money in [the] property’, suggesting that tenants’ financial contributions might create uncertainty over the ownership of the asset or retrofit measure.

Louis, who had experienced conflict with his tenant over rent increases, explained that disagreement over upgrades or expecting tenants to contribute towards their cost could be a source of tension, stating: ‘I think if any work needed doing or anything needed upgrading, she would be quite awkward about [it] (...) and generally if we need to do a rental increase to be able to make those improvements. If she doesn't agree to them, then that becomes obviously a much more difficult situation.’

Where tenants’ energy use was concerned, interviewees had different attitudes depending on whether they knew their tenants’ energy use, with attitudes ranging from indifference to a desire to keep bills low to appeal to tenants to a more controlling attitude. Participants who were HMO landlords and packaged bills as part of the rent could go so far as to influence or control their tenants’ energy consumption remotely, in the case of Ted. Ted argued this was a means of keeping bills low as energy savings were an integral part of his payback strategy on retrofit, as he ‘forecast the payback in terms of lower heating bills’. As a result, he explained, ‘I remotely control all the heating. It's really important that we do that, otherwise the tenants will just have the central heating on’. Keeping an eye on tenants’ bills was a shared theme among HMO landlords we spoke to: Mary, who rented out an HMO property, told us: ‘I tried to educate them many times on how to use less energy’. She had therefore established a billing system with her tenants: ‘in the summertime, I pay X amount for gas and electric, and if they use more, they pay. It's divided between the 5 tenants, and in the winter I pay more because they need more, and if they use above and beyond that, they pay.’

In the last section of our interviews, participants were prompted to imagine a national mandate for landlords to install heat pumps in their properties. The aim of the scenario was to move beyond interviewees’ potential reticence towards the technology and to home in on the practicalities of installation - including what trusted bodies and sources of information they would turn to, and what service(s) or support they would need. Answers were not necessarily a representation of landlords’ real-world decisions or behaviours. At times, we found some participants lacked relevant knowledge, either about heat pumps or existing grants and schemes, and supplied them with this information. The scenario also did not take into account situations where participants had already made plans to sell their properties or, in one instance, already had a heat pump installed in their property.

Initial responses and expected impact

When faced with the scenario, the majority of interviewees initially expressed negative emotions, ranging from concern to anger. Two interviewees (Matthew and Bea) expressed more positive emotions, but both intend to sell their properties in the near future, and one (Bea) already had a heat pump - meaning the scenario would have no impact on them.

Cost

While a cost was not explicitly mentioned in the scenario, upfront investment was our interviewees’ key concern. Most interviewees had a preconceived idea about the cost of heat pumps, but not all knew about financial support options such as BUS, and interviewers provided additional information about BUS to eight participants.

Some of the most negative responses to the prompt came from smaller landlords who relied on letting agents, especially those nearer retirement age, such as Valerie and Lauren. As Viola (1 property) put it: ‘It's like having no tenant for a whole year’ However, larger portfolio landlords we spoke to, such as Rhoda and Ted, who would hypothetically face the highest upfront costs due to having several properties, were also challenged by the total costs of upgrading several properties at once. Participants who had recently replaced their heating systems with more efficient boilers were also reluctant to discard boilers in working order, like Rhoda, who said she would begrudge ‘ditching stuff that's relatively new in order to get something else’, suggesting that to landlords a more efficient boiler was already regarded as a big expense they were unwilling to discard before the end of its life. Ted, for example, was proud to mention that he had retrofitted one of his properties, an old Victorian house, with ‘the most energy efficient boiler I could purchase’.

Where participants knew about BUS, we heard a range of views about how much it alleviated the cost of heat pumps. For example, Dean explained that he ‘liked the idea of having the however many thousand pounds of support, but it’s the fact that there’s another double that that’s needed to actually do the work and get it.’ On the other hand, Hussein felt that BUS made the cost of a heat pump more approachable compared to other expenses he had previously experienced, explaining: ‘So let's say, for example, in my theory of it costing 10 grands, if you could get a seven and a half grand subsidy towards it, and if you could get together with a group of friends, and reduce that 10 grand, to say 9 and a half. Well, then, you're only investing 2 grand. It cost me substantially more than that on a kitchen or the bathroom, or the decorating and carpet.’

These interviews suggest that a lack of information about BUS may be holding back uptake, but should also be accompanied by work to reduce the upfront cost of heat pumps, potentially through enabling approaches to leverage economies of scale. As Hussein’s comment suggests, individuals’ abilities to draw on informal networks or membership groups could also give landlords access to reduce costs.

Scepticism of government

Some landlords we spoke to, such as Ted, Matthew, Dean and Hussein, also expressed scepticism towards the scenario due to their past experience with poor government implementation of decarbonisation policies, having previously experienced cases where a government had either withdrawn proposed legislation or pushed deadlines. For example, Ted stated:

‘There was this talk about requiring rental properties to be at an EPC C level by, was it 2025? And that came to nothing. So I would have some skepticism over whether this would be a hard and fast requirement or not because the reality is 2030 is only 5 years away, and I think it would be pretty impossible for landlords to do the required investment, to install an air source heat pump, but I think 5 years is just too short a time frame for me personally.’

Dean also highlighted the lack of consistency around sustainability from successive governments would also make him sceptical of such a policy, referring to his experience of working in aviation: ‘It feels like, you know, government makes an announcement, and then everyone shifts to do that. And then, a few years later, they, the next government, changed their mind, or the previous one changed their mind or whatever.’

Scepticism about the technology

Another area of concern was around heat pump technology itself. Levels of awareness and buy-in varied based on interviewees’ personal experiences, although more professionalised landlords or landlords working in the housing or energy sector (such as Matthew, Hussein, and Ted) were more likely to have some prior knowledge, while a few participants had done some research either due to their profession (like Matthew) or out of environmental concern. Only one (Viola) had not heard of heat pumps previously, but some of the landlords we spoke to had limited knowledge. Dean, who had some first-hand experience of seeing a heat pump in a friend’s property, felt the most positive about heat pumps.

By contrast, Valerie had the most negative image of heat pumps, explaining that she had previously discouraged her partner from installing one due to hearing negative stories. She also mentioned aesthetic concerns about heat pumps, describing them as ‘massive monstrosities’ which could put future buyers of her properties off. A number of landlords we spoke to expressed concerns about the heat pump’s external units, with Amy explaining she would be worried about the risks of vandalism to the technology. Hussein also expressed concerns about the efficiency of the technology, especially if used on its own and not in combination with a renewable energy source:

‘Gas boilers have been tried and tested. A lot of people that have got ground source heat pumps are [not] overly happy with the performance because the electric bills have rocketed. So unless you're doing a combination of solar panels and ground source heat pump. I don't think it's a viable solution.

Workforce and maintenance

The availability of workforce to install heat pumps was a concern among our interviewees, compounded by having to consider their tenants and opening themselves up to the risk of having to pay for compensation in the event of something going wrong, a concern expressed by Matthew.

Bea, who had bought a newbuild with a heat pump, explained she had found it difficult to find someone to service her heat pump and compared this experience with dealing with a boiler:’it took a long time for the agents to find someone in contrast to a problem that a plumber can just come and do’. Interviewees also raised the related questions of ongoing maintenance and compliance.

Impact on tenants

The landlords we interviewed frequently expressed anxieties around potential disruption to their rental property during and after installation, and were concerned about tenants having poor experiences as a result of the technology. Concerns included loss of space, tenants’ thermal comfort, potential difficulties with using the heat pump, and variations in performance due to seasons. Even an environmentally minded landlord like Rhoda expressed scepticism: ‘It's not something I'd want to do with tenants living in properties.’

Increased bills were a topic raised by a few of our interviewees, with opinions split between those who assumed heat pumps would result in higher bills for their tenants and those who thought the opposite. William, for example, expressed concern that bills could go up in the event that a tenant did not know how to use their heating system. In some interviews, landlords were prompted with information about offers such as time-of-use tariffs and heat-as-a-service offers, with responses oscillating between uncertainty and curiosity. Viola, for example, stated:

Feel like as a tenant... I wouldn't want to be told when to use things, but then, again, I have nothing to do with their electricity bills, water bills, they take care of it. So they currently they will choose what tariff they are on with Eon or Npower, or whatever they choose. So if it was a case where it's like.. they can still choose which tariff they're on, maybe that would be fine, but I wouldn't want them to be like right, you have to use this between this time and this time.

Bea was our only interviewee with first-hand experience of the heat pump in her property, which she had bought as a new build, but had not received negative feedback from her tenants, stating: ‘I'm just sort of wondering if that might have been annoying for them. But I don't. I never had any information about that.’

Market-wide implications

Another theme that surfaced in a number of interviews was the potential market impact of a mandate, with interviewees expressing concerns around finding installers to install and service heat pumps across the PRS, a lack of qualified workforce, but also a potential destabilising effect on the market. For example, Ted speculated: ‘not all landlords have mortgages. So for those without a mortgage, they might be able to swallow the cost because they're still making money on a monthly basis. But I think it'd be hugely disruptive to the rental market.’ Louis argued that such a scenario would likely have an impact on rental prices, as ‘landlords are going to try and offset that in some way, shape or form’, suggesting that a countermeasure would be to ensure that this measure would extend beyond the PRS and ‘be fairly distributed’. As a letting agent, Matthew took a broader view of the market and argued that there would be a risk that landlords would wait for additional grants and ‘prices would go up because there’ll be a lot more installers knowing that people have got to get this done’ and ‘charging more’ as a result.

Positive impact

When speculating about the hypothetical positive effects of the scenario for them, several participants pointed out potential economic benefits. For example, as an HMO landlord, Ted could foresee that the increased efficiency of the technology could lead to lower bills, which would benefit his income. Hussein similarly posited that lower bills could give some margin to increase the rent without increasing tenants’ overall living costs. As a letting agent, Matthew was in favour of upgrades that would increase the value of landlords’ assets, explaining:

I think it's well, both professionally on business level and personally on my level. I'm all for it. The majority of landlords don't mind spending a bit of money on their properties, and they should do because it's their asset at the end of the day, and it's a vehicle that they're profiting from.

Dean, who previously worked for an energy company, also anticipated that heat pumps might increase the value of a property and futureproof it against future regulations that would mandate low-carbon technologies across the housing market. Finally, landlords such as Louis and Lauren, who reported higher levels of environmental concern, also brought up the positive environmental impact of installing low-carbon technology.

During our interviews, we encouraged interviewees to consider what services, support and organisations they might turn to to help them install low-carbon heating systems in their properties.

Government incentives and financial support

A majority of our interviewees expected some form of government intervention would be necessary to enforce a roll-out of heat pumps across the PRS, with a majority of interviewees expressing a preference for a grant that would make the process cheaper.

Hussein, for example, suggested: ‘there'd have to be some sort of a government incentive to really kind of make people do this, especially if they were targeting landlords [...] either some sort of tax incentive for you to be a landlord or some sort of a financial subsidy for you to go through that road’.

When pressed to give estimations as to the level of support required, some, like Viola and Valerie, declared they would want 70% of the cost covered. Several participants either directly said they would hope for heat pumps to be at cost parity with boilers (Matthew) or, at the very least, were more amenable to the scenario in the event of cost parity (William and Amy).

Several interviewees expressed interest in low- to zero-interest loans to help them finance the cost of heat pumps, with landlords like Dean and Rhoda, mentioning previous experience of using similar offers. Others also mentioned the option of offsetting heat pump installations against tax, preferably as a deductible expense rather than as a capital expense (Rhoda).

Heat-as-a-service offers

In some interviews, we discussed the option of heat-as-a-service style offers and tariffs where heat pump usage would be automated and remotely optimised to guarantee a certain cost. This option was of most interest to interviewees who were already more informed about their tenants’ energy consumption due to being HMO landlords, such as Ted and Mary. The idea of a heat-as-a-service approach resonated most with Ted:

‘The model you spoke about, where a supplier would guarantee you a certain monthly cost and they would optimise the operation of the air source heat pump. That could be interesting, my only provision would be that it shouldn't interfere with my current set-up, because I remotely control all the heating.’

Guidance and aftercare

Multiple participants said they would expect some form of ongoing support from the point of researching and deciding on the best technology for their homes, to aftercare. Consensus on this idea cut across all types of landlords regardless of portfolio size. One landlord, Hussein, mentioned he would be interested in a one-stop shop facilitated by his local authority or government that could inform him on requirements, including planning, insurance, and equipment required to proceed with the installation.

Existing innovation in the PRS has included solutions focused on providing landlords with tailored guidance, such as the South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority’s Net Zero project, an AI-led tailored tool to support landlords with decarbonising their properties. These interviews suggest that demand would exist for innovative services that would target landlords at the purchasing point, or when looking to retrofit their rental properties.

A role for letting agents

Letting agents provide the landlords whose property they manage with extensive support, from information about compliance to sourcing service providers to manage repairs and maintenance. In a future where landlords would need to comply with EPC C requirements, it is therefore logical to imagine a role for letting agents in the decarbonisation process.

When faced with the scenario, a number of interviewees indicated they would turn to their letting agent for support (Viola, Bea and Dean). For example, Bea declared: ‘My assumption is, I would have lent heavily on the agent for their advice or recommendations for that, especially if it's a new regulation coming in, because they're going to have to advise all of their landlords about it.’ Matthew, who was also a letting agent, indicated that he would let landlords who worked with him know about schemes. When talking about the scenario, he also pictured his landlords’ response as: ‘they would just let me take control and get what needs to be done, done.’.

Landlords who managed their properties through a letting agent were overrepresented in our cohort and the role of letting agents in heat decarbonisation would require further testing and validation, but points to a potential avenue for further research.

While regulatory context and opportunities would be crucial to make such a model effective, letting agents’ access to a wide number of homeowners and landlords puts them in a strategic role to accelerate heat decarbonisation - potentially providing a service whereby they would source installers and help coordinate the installation with tenants on behalf of landlords. Their roles could range from informing landlords about decarbonisation schemes and funding, providing information to help towards compliance, to helping their customers plan measures and secure service providers. Encouraging letting agents to take a holistic approach to their portfolio – taking a proactive approach to targeting their customer base with information – could also hold potential as an approach to smooth the process of decarbonisation for those landlords ready to invest in their property in order to secure a long-term income and grow the value of their property.

Several interviewees expressed strongly that a mandate might push them to sell their properties, especially those already considering a market exit (including landlords with larger portfolios like Amy) or those with smaller property portfolios of one or two properties. Property type could be influential: Ted noted he might look to sell his buy-to-lets but that he would retain his HMO properties, which would continue to provide a good return on investment.

While the scenario was mostly intended to allow landlords to imagine a hypothetical process of heat pump installation and what barriers they might encounter, some of our interviewees changed their minds by the end of the conversation - either due to having gained further knowledge about heat pumps or due to becoming aware of existing grants. We noticed this most among participants who had previously invested in refurbishment for their properties and were keen to rent out modern, high-spec properties. Landlords like William became more open to the possibility of installing an air-to-air heat pump in his property, as it was closer in price to a boiler than an air-to-water heat pump. Another example of this change in attitude was Hussein, who concluded the interview by observing that the BUS would likely make the upfront cost more acceptable.

We will draw on the research described in this report to inform our future work addressing the role of private landlords in the clean heat transition. To support this process, we created four landlord personas. Personas are fictional characters capturing details of user groups that are frequently used in the design of new services and solutions. Based on research, they are intended to make it easier to empathise with potential users and respond to their particular needs and pain points.

We selected the four personas to be distinct in their characteristics, goals and barriers, therefore suggesting different attributes for potential solutions. Short persona descriptions are included below.

Persona 1: The professional portfolio landlord

This persona is a full-time property investor with a large, diverse portfolio including houses in multiple occupancy (HMO). They run letting as a business with an analytical, ROI-driven approach. They maintain strong professional networks and use trusted contractors, expecting clear financial justification for upgrades. They prioritise regulatory compliance and future-proofing while minimising tenant disruption.

Persona 2: The passive income landlord

This persona is a couple owning a single rental property, who view being a landlord primarily through the lens of a long-term financial investment. They are busy professionals who want hands-off management, relying heavily on an agent for regulatory compliance, managing works, and tenant interactions. They care about the environment but are risk-averse, with limited borrowing appetite and a strong focus on financial stability.

Persona 3: The active committed landlord

This persona owns three properties and takes a hands-on approach to management and maintenance. They are keen to grow their portfolio but are constrained by finances and time, and frustrated by what they see as increasingly demanding regulation. They look for cost-effective compliance and reliable tradespeople, balancing DIY work with efficient solutions for larger projects. They draw on informal, local networks for advice and recommendations.

Persona 4: The ambivalent retiree landlord

This persona is a retiree landlord with one mortgage-free property providing essential retirement income. They find managing the property increasingly stressful and want minimal hassle. They are financially constrained and risk-averse, focused on short-term income and possibly selling rather than making major upgrades.

Our research shows that heat pump adoption in the private rental sector is constrained by a combination of financial, informational, and trust-related barriers, compounded by regulatory uncertainty. In our conversations, landlords we interviewed pointed to the following problems as key barriers to heat pump uptake in the PRS.

• Heat pumps’ high upfront costs and slow return on investment in a context of diminishing returns and tightening regulation for letting property.
• Scepticism towards the technology, with concerns including efficiency, aesthetics, disruption, and availability of a qualified workforce.
• Scepticism towards government policy, impacted by previous shifts in decarbonisation policies and deadlines, discouraging investment.
• Impact on tenants and property management, both at the point of installation and beyond.

The barriers listed here, such as high heat pump costs, do not only affect landlords, but are felt acutely in the private rental sector, where they are coupled with a lack of incentives and concerns around compliance. Our research suggests that addressing these challenges might support heat pump uptake in the PRS. Approaches should focus on making heat pumps the norm by easing their adoption through lowered costs; supporting landlords wanting to invest in their rental property with clear information and points of redress; and protecting tenants from shouldering the financial burden of decarbonisation.

A lack of regulatory incentives has created poor conditions for heat pump uptake in the PRS. Current government responses in Scotland, England and Wales are aiming to address this situation. The Renters’ Rights Bill and changes to EPC and MEES regulations will change the status quo. At the time of writing, we expect DESNZ’s Warm Homes Plan to deliver proposals to support decarbonisation in the PRS. However, the UK and Scottish governments must ensure that the cost of transitioning to clean heat is not solely borne by tenants.

High upfront costs, a lack of clarity about heat pump costs, low levels of information about funding and low trust in the technology are likely to have negatively affected uptake in the PRS, as they have in the owner-occupied sector. Policies to remedy these barriers would have a positive impact on all homeowners regardless of tenure.

Landlords face a unique combination of lack of incentives (such as lower bills) and regulatory constraints that set them apart from other homeowners when it comes to decarbonisation. As a result, landlords ready to upgrade their rental properties should be incentivised to do so, in particular by rebalancing the life costs of a heat pump to bring them down to parity with, or below, those of a boiler, and through exploring options that would avoid shifting the cost of decarbonisation onto tenants. Landlords could also benefit from increasing awareness of innovative business models (such as hire purchase or group purchases) that could decrease the upfront cost of heat pumps. From our interviews, it was also apparent that current regulatory thresholds and targets have likely not been sufficient to encourage uptake so far, and have encouraged measures such as insulation over low-carbon heating technologies. However, previous U-turns in policy direction on sustainability have hampered change, created uncertainty and a lack of trust among landlords tasked with regulatory compliance, even as changes in tax legislation and a rise in interest rates have made being a landlord less lucrative. Clarity of messaging and signposting, an easy customer journey and guarantees, with clear avenues for redress, will help encourage landlords willing to invest in their rental properties by creating trust and increasing momentum – particularly those who, like some of our interviewees, may have been discouraged by poor experiences with government schemes in the past. Policies should aim to address decarbonisation and fuel poverty as a priority, by rebalancing the costs of electricity in order to avoid shifting the burden of cost onto tenants.

This research has highlighted a potential role for letting agents: by supporting their customers with regulatory compliance, helping them find suppliers and coordinating repair and maintenance to rental properties, letting agents already have experience with providing services that may prove invaluable for a mass decarbonisation of the private rental sector. While the findings of this report are limited to a small group of landlords, they have the potential to be generalisable to a wider cohort, and we will aim to validate them in a further stage, testing the potential for letting agents to support decarbonisation.

Finally, while this research does not purport to deliver detailed recommendations, the below measures would go some way towards lessening some of the challenges we have listed.

Recommendations

• The UK and Scottish governments should maintain their current ambition for EPC C to become the legal minimum for homes in the private rental sector.
• The Scottish government should change the eligibility criteria for the Home Energy Scotland grant so that landlords can access it, as they can with BUS in England and Wales.

Avenues for further research

• Explore the potential of business models, such as leasing or time of use/heat as a service tariffs, that could reduce the upfront costs of heat pumps and provide reassurance about ongoing maintenance. Such models could increase the likelihood of uptake, particularly among professionalised and HMO landlords, while providing security of cost to tenants.
• Explore the potential of ‘heat pump ready’ services for landlords looking to sell their properties in a shorter period of time.
• Explore the role of letting agents as regulatory support for landlords, and in particular as part of a coordinated shift to low-carbon heating for private rented properties.
• Exploring tenants’ perceptions of low-carbon heating systems and/or understanding their experiences of retrofit.

Interviews

We conducted semi-structured interviews with 13 landlords and conducted a thematic analysis of their answers based on interview transcripts.

Research team

Interviews were led by one of four different members of Nesta staff with experience of conducting research interviews, usually joined by another Nesta staff member to assist in note-taking or asking supplementary questions. Participants were recruited via an external panel to allow for greater diversity of experience and backgrounds and were not known to the interviewers.

Study design

Our interviewees were all landlords with under 10 properties. We recruited participants through an external panel, asking for a mix of participants from across the UK nations and a range of ethnic, social and religious backgrounds, with and without experience of retrofit to their rental property and with a broad range of incomes. After conducting preliminary interviews with members of staff at Nesta who were themselves landlords to refine our topic guide, we made the decision to screen out landlords owning properties in blocks of flats, bedsits and studios. This is because, in England and Wales, flat owners often have to make decisions about their properties in agreement with other leaseholders, which could complicate and limit their ability to make energy efficiency-related modifications, unlike owners of properties in freeholds.

Prior to interviews, we asked interviewees to rate their attitudes to green upgrades in their rental properties on a scale of 1 to 5 (with 1 indicating strong disagreement with a statement and 5 a strong agreement) using the following statements.

1. Climate change plays an important part in my considerations when thinking about renovating my rental properties.
2. I would be willing to spend money on my rental property to make it greener.

If they agreed and took part in the interviews, interviewees received a £40 incentive as a thank you for their participation. Interviews were held on Zoom and lasted up to an hour. They were semi-structured and followed a pre-designed topic guide, but could include discussions of other topics if raised by the participants or interviewers. Interviews were recorded and analysis was based on automatic transcripts generated by Zoom.

Qualitative data analysis

We conducted a thematic analysis of the interviews using NVivo. A coding framework was generated by a member of the team and reviewed by other team members in the first instance. Three interviews were then blind-coded by another Nesta researcher who had not taken part in the interviews. There was consensus on the themes emerging from the interviews, which were generated both deductively from our questions and desk-based research, and inductively from the data. Further to this, we used Gemini to identify themes across the scripts, which aligned with themes identified by researchers.