What does an electric shower actually cost per wash?
A typical electric shower costs somewhere around 18p to 25p for a five to eight minute wash. It depends on the power of your shower and today’s electricity price. Nobody prints that number on the unit itself, so the electric shower cost is one most households never actually work out. It just quietly adds up in the background.
Run that daily for one person and you’re looking at roughly £70 to £90 a year on the shower alone, before water heating for anything else in the house. For a family of four all showering daily, the electric shower cost can creep towards £300 a year. None of that is a fixed number. It moves with your own habits and with whatever the price cap is doing that quarter, so treat every figure here as a working estimate, not your actual bill.
How much power does your shower use?
Most electric showers sold in the UK are rated between 7.5kW and 10.5kW, with 9kW to 9.5kW the most common size in an average bathroom. That rating is the real clue to the electric shower cost. It tells you exactly how much electricity is flowing the second you turn the dial.
A 9.5kW shower running for six minutes uses about 0.95kWh. At the current Ofgem price cap rate of 26.11p per kWh for electricity, that works out at around 25p. Turn the dial up in winter, when the incoming water is colder, and your shower has to work harder to hit the same temperature. The electric shower cost creeps up without you doing anything differently at all.
Not sure what you’ve got? Check the rating plate near the base of the unit, usually printed in kW, sometimes tucked behind the cover where the pipes connect.
Is an electric shower cheaper than a gas-heated one?
Usually not, if your hot water already comes from a gas boiler. Electricity currently costs around three and a half times as much as gas per unit under the Ofgem price cap, roughly 26.11p per kWh against 7.33p per kWh for gas. A mixer shower fed by a gas-heated cylinder or combi boiler is typically the cheaper of the two to run.
Where an electric shower earns its keep is when there’s simply no other way to get hot water to that bathroom, a loft conversion, an annexe with no boiler nearby, or a home running on an electric-only system anyway. In a house with gas central heating, an electric shower is often there for backup on the days the boiler’s off. Fair trade for the convenience, even if the electric shower cost per wash is a bit higher.
Three ways to cut the electric shower cost without a cold shower
Key takeaways
- A five to eight minute electric shower costs roughly 18p to 25p today, depending on the shower’s power rating.
- Electricity is around three and a half times the price of gas per unit, so a gas-fed shower usually costs less to run.
- Shaving even two minutes off a daily shower can save a single person around £20 to £25 a year.
- A flow-limiting or aerated shower head cuts water use without cutting water pressure much.
- The rating plate near the shower unit tells you exactly what you are working with in kW.
First, time it. Two minutes off an average shower saves a single person somewhere around £20 to £25 a year on the electric shower cost alone. Most people genuinely can’t tell the difference between a six minute wash and an eight minute one until they check a clock.
Second, fit a flow-limiting or aerated shower head. These mix air into the water stream, so it still feels like decent pressure while using noticeably less water. Less water to heat means a lower electric shower cost, without you noticing any difference under it.
Third, check the season setting if your shower has one. Many models have a lower winter and summer mode, or a dial that throttles the flow down slightly. Same warm wash, gentler flow, less power.
Frequently asked questions about electric shower costs
- Does a bigger kW rating always mean a more expensive shower?
- Not necessarily on its own. A higher kW rating can heat water faster, which sometimes means a shorter shower for the same result. It’s the kWh actually used, power multiplied by time, that decides the electric shower cost, not the rating alone.
- Is it worth switching an electric shower for a mixer shower?
- If you already have a gas-heated hot water supply nearby, it can be worth it over a few years, since gas is usually the cheaper fuel per unit. Weigh the upfront plumbing work against that ongoing saving before you commit.
- Do power showers cost more to run than electric showers?
- A pumped power shower fed from a hot water cylinder uses the cylinder’s fuel, often gas, so it’s usually a separate cost question from an electric shower’s kWh draw. Compare the fuel type first, not just the word “power”.
- Does an electric shower use a lot of standby power?
- No. Electric showers only draw power while the water’s actually running, unlike appliances that sip electricity on standby. The electric shower cost is almost entirely about how long the water runs and at what setting.
- Will the price cap change affect my electric shower cost?
- Only slightly. Ofgem reviews the price cap every quarter, and the unit rate due to apply from 1 October 2026 sits close to today’s rate, so a typical shower won’t move much in price either way.
None of this means ripping out a perfectly good electric shower. It just means knowing roughly what it costs, the same way you’d know what a kettle or a tumble dryer costs, so the number stops being a mystery that shows up on the bill and nowhere else. Small, boring changes, like two fewer minutes and a better shower head, do more for the electric shower cost than anything dramatic ever will. Roo would call that the fun-free way to save money. He’s not wrong.
If the bigger worry is that your whole energy bill feels too high, not just the shower, it’s worth checking you’re not overpaying across the board. Our appliance running costs guide ranks the worst offenders in a typical home, and if your hot water actually comes from an immersion heater rather than a boiler, that’s worth checking too, since the two get confused more often than you’d think. A backup electric heater left running is a similarly quiet cost, and the rates behind all these sums come from Ofgem’s published price cap unit rates.
