Energy firm profits
Image by Flying Logos, CC BY-SA 4.0
Our system is rigged. You might have heard it before, but nowhere is it more true than in our energy system.
It sees ordinary people paying a premium to line shareholder pockets, or being forced to go without life’s essentials. It sees millions of us suffer in cold, damp homes while polluters dish out the dividends.
Energy companies have pocketed a stomach-turning £500 billion in profits since the energy crisis started.
That’s half a TRILLION pounds.
We need to see the profits of oil and gas producers, traders and suppliers raxed properly and an end to fossil fuel subsidies of millions of pounds every day.
Regulation is failing at its basic duty: to protect communities from being ripped off. Ofgem’s energy price cap decisions keep putting up our bills while failing to clamp down on bumper bonuses and huge profits. In 2023 alone they handed British Gas an extra £500 million in profits — you really couldn’t make it up!
Plus, natural monopolies like grid networks face no real competition, yet reap the benefits of some of Britain’s highest profit margins.
Key stats:
- Energy companies generated £26.2 billion in profits in the first three months of 2026 alone – £3 billion of that was from UK operations
- 20 energy companies have made over £500 billion since the start of the energy crisis, enough to build more than 1000 hospitals
- British Gas owner Centrica’s CEO Chris O’Shea DOUBLED his pay in 2024 to a distorted £8.2 million
- Ofgem has increased energy bills 77% since 2020/21 — we’re paying £800 more a year on energy per year, on average!
- A sum equal to 24.2% of the average bill was taken as pre-tax profits by the major energy industries in 2024
- Britain’s energy networks and generation companies paid out £70.7bn in dividends since 2010
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