The hunt for UK homes air conditioning has moved from curiosity to serious criterion: searches on Rightmove for properties with air conditioning have more than doubled over the summer period and, measured year-on-year, have risen by 234%, according to data published by Rightmove’s press centre.
The summer-specific figure, covering 1 May to 31 July, shows a 104% uplift compared with the same stretch a year earlier, as The Independent confirmed. The year-on-year measure, drawn from Rightmove’s own press centre, tells a longer story: interest in air-conditioned homes has more than tripled in twelve months. Rental searches followed the same trajectory, rising sharply over the same period.
Rightmove’s property expert Colleen Babcock put it plainly: ‘While location, space and affordability remain key priorities, our research suggests that people are paying closer attention to how comfortable a home will be during hotter weather. Many households are already making practical changes to keep cool, while others are factoring these considerations into their next move.’
Why Demand for UK Homes Air Conditioning Is Accelerating
The backdrop is hard to ignore. Temperatures in parts of England hit 38C during the UK’s fifth heatwave of the summer. Consumer research published alongside Rightmove’s data found that 87% of people said a property’s ability to stay cool was important when choosing their next home. Sixty-one per cent said they would consider installing air conditioning; only 12% had already done so.
James Waight, head of sales at John D Wood & Co, said the ability to stay cool in summer while retaining heat in winter was ‘no longer simply a nice-to-have but an important factor in the decision to buy a property.’
An estimated 4 million homes in the UK now have air conditioning, double the figure from three years ago, with the rise in working from home widely credited with fuelling that demand. Yet the overall penetration rate remains low. Only 5% of British households have air conditioning, according to British Progress, against approximately 37% of households globally. In the United States and Japan the figure exceeds 90%.
Part of the explanation lies in the housing stock itself. According to government figures cited by Time, one in six homes in England date from before 1900, and 46% were built between 1930 and 1982, meaning the vast majority were constructed long before air conditioning was commercially available for domestic use.
The Health Stakes Are Rising
The shift in buyer behaviour coincides with a darkening picture from public health researchers. The Climate Change Committee projects that the risk of overheating will be 4.2 times higher in a typical summer by the 2050s than it is today, and that 92% of existing homes could overheat by 2050. Passive measures, such as drawing curtains and opening windows, are unlikely to be sufficient.
A separate Guardian report on the Committee’s May 2026 findings noted that heatwaves could exceed 40C across all parts of the UK by 2050, with longer periods of hot weather potentially causing an additional 10,000 heat-related deaths a year. The Committee also found that 57% of heat-related mortality risk in the 2050s could be avoided by adapting just 30% of the most vulnerable urban households.
British Progress puts the current cost in even starker terms: in 2022, heat-related death rates in the UK were more than ten times those in Sweden and twice that of the Netherlands. London’s rate exceeded every other northern European capital, sitting closer to Rome’s than to Stockholm’s.
Air conditioning specialist Debonair Cooling told the Guardian that inquiries were coming from owners of both period and new-build properties, with systems costing around £2,500 per room. ‘They are struggling to sleep at night, or have children with breathing problems,’ it said, adding that some loft conversions were reaching temperatures of 50C.
The environmental tension is real. Air conditioning accounts for roughly 4% of global greenhouse gas emissions, and the technology is energy-intensive by nature. Some UK homeowners with heat pumps have found they can use them to cool their homes as well as heat them, which could widen the market for that technology without the full carbon cost of a standalone unit.
My read is that this is not a transient weather story. When 87% of buyers list cooling as a priority and year-on-year search volumes have more than tripled, the property market is beginning to reprice thermal comfort in the same way it once repriced broadband access. The question for developers and the existing housing stock is whether the retrofit economics catch up before the next heatwave makes the decision for them.
