How much does a heat pump cost in Manchester?

If you have typed “heat pump cost Manchester” into a search box, you have probably seen figures from £3,000 to £18,000 and no explanation of the gap. The gap is real: it depends on your house, what is included, and whether the grant has already been taken off. This guide separates those three things.

What heat pumps cost across England and Wales

The most reliable public figure comes from the government itself. Every installation funded by the Boiler Upgrade Scheme is registered with its total cost, and the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero publishes the results each month. In the latest release (July 2026, published 27 August 2026), air source heat pumps installed in April to June 2026 had:

• a median cost of £12,908 — half of installations cost less, half cost more;
• a middle range of £11,128 to £15,627 (the lower and upper quartiles, so half of all installations fell between these two numbers);
• a median size of 8 kW.

Two things matter when you read those numbers. First, they are the full installation price before the grant — the government reports the grant value as part of the total. Take off £7,500 and the median household paid roughly £5,400. Second, they are national. The statistics do not break cost down by region, so any website quoting a precise “Manchester average” has worked it out some other way. What we can say from the same data is that grant-funded heat pumps are no longer unusual here: 320 homes in the City of Manchester and 7,112 across the North West had a heat pump grant paid between May 2022 and June 2026.

For comparison, a ground source heat pump — with boreholes or ground loops — had a median cost of £27,232 in the same quarter. On most Manchester plots there is no room for the ground loop, which is why nearly everything we discuss below is air source.

How size changes the price

The single biggest driver of cost is the output your house needs, measured in kilowatts (kW). That comes from a room-by-room heat loss calculation, not a rule of thumb. Here is what installations of different sizes cost across England and Wales in the 2025/26 financial year:

Source: DESNZ Boiler Upgrade Scheme statistics, July 2026, table A1.3A (air-to-water heat pumps, April 2025 to March 2026). “After grant” is our arithmetic: median minus £7,500.

The pattern is gentle rather than steep: going from a 5 kW unit to a 9 kW unit adds roughly £1,200 at the median, because much of the cost is labour, pipework, the cylinder and the controls, which do not scale with the size of the unit. It is also why an honest heat loss survey matters. An oversized heat pump costs more to buy and tends to run less efficiently, so “go bigger to be safe” has a real cost.

For Manchester housing, that is broadly good news. A mid-terrace shares both side walls with heated homes, so it loses far less heat than a detached house of the same floor area, and it usually lands at the smaller end of the table. Our guide to heat pumps in terraced houses covers that in detail.

What a ByEco installation typically costs

A typical ByEco air source heat pump installation costs around £7,000. With the £7,500 Boiler Upgrade Scheme grant, that means in many cases the grant covers your full installation and there is nothing left for you to pay.

“Typical” is doing real work in that sentence, so here is what sits behind it. Every price we give follows a survey and a heat loss calculation, and the quote is itemised: the unit, the hot water arrangement, any radiators that need changing, and the electrical work. If your house needs a larger unit or more work than usual, the quote will say so, line by line, before you commit to anything. If a heat pump is the wrong answer for your house, we will say that instead.

What moves a Manchester quote

Your postcode barely matters. Your house does. These are the things that move the price, roughly in order of how often they matter on Manchester jobs:

• Heat loss and unit size. Solid-walled Victorian and Edwardian terraces lose more heat per square metre than cavity-walled semis, but a mid-terrace’s shared walls usually more than make up for it. The heat loss calculation settles this, room by room.
• Radiators. A heat pump runs at a lower water temperature than a gas boiler, so some rooms may need a larger radiator to stay warm. The survey tells you which ones; it is rarely every room.
• Hot water. How your hot water is provided, and where any storage goes, affects both the price and the space you give up. Ask for this to be spelled out in the quote.
• Where the outdoor unit goes. A short, simple pipe run from a back yard is cheaper than a long route through the house or a flat-roof position that needs extra work.
• Electrics. Some homes need work at the consumer unit before a heat pump can be connected. A good survey checks this rather than finding out on the day.

The grant, VAT and how you pay

The Boiler Upgrade Scheme gives £7,500 towards an air source or ground source heat pump in England and Wales. It is not means-tested, and since 28 April 2026 you no longer need an Energy Performance Certificate to qualify. You need to own the property, and it must not be a new build (self-builds aside) or social housing. Hybrid systems, which keep a gas boiler alongside the heat pump, do not qualify.

You never handle the grant yourself. The installer applies, and Ofgem’s rules require the grant to be taken off your quote before you pay — so the price you are asked to pay should already show the deduction. The installation must be commissioned within 120 days of the application.

Heat pumps installed in homes are also currently at 0% VAT, which is due to end on 31 March 2027. Our Boiler Upgrade Scheme guide covers eligibility in full.

Running costs are the other half

The purchase price is a one-off; the running cost is every winter for the next twenty years or so. A heat pump delivers several units of heat for each unit of electricity it uses, but electricity costs more per unit than gas, so whether it beats a boiler depends on the system’s seasonal efficiency (SCOP) and your tariff. We have worked the numbers through with current Ofgem price cap rates in heat pump vs gas boiler running costs.

How to compare two quotes

Two quotes for the same house can differ by thousands, and the cheaper one is not always the better deal. Put them side by side and check:

1. Is there a room-by-room heat loss calculation, and does the heat pump size match it?
2. Does it name the make and model of the heat pump and say how hot water will be provided?
3. Does it list which radiators are being replaced, if any?
4. Is the £7,500 grant shown as a deduction, and does the installer give an MCS certification number you can check?
5. Is the electrical work included, or listed as an extra?
6. What warranty comes with the unit and with the workmanship, and who stands behind it?

If a quote cannot answer those questions, the headline price does not mean much yet.

Where ByEco stands

We are a Manchester company, based at 12–14 Midland Street, installing across Greater Manchester, England and Wales. Our MCS and TrustMark certification is in progress; until it is complete, we say so rather than let it be assumed. If you would like a figure for your own house, get in touch or see the Manchester area page for local planning and siting detail.

Sources

Every figure on this page was checked against primary sources on 18 September 2026. Grant rules, planning rules and prices change — if you are reading this much later, verify before acting.

• DESNZ — Boiler Upgrade Scheme statistics, July 2026 (tables Q1.1A, A1.3A and Q1.2)
• GOV.UK — Boiler Upgrade Scheme: what you can get
• GOV.UK — Boiler Upgrade Scheme: check if you’re eligible
• Ofgem — Boiler Upgrade Scheme guidance for installers
• HMRC — VAT on energy-saving materials and heating equipment (Notice 708/6)