The Warm Homes: Social Housing Fund (WH:SHF) is the government’s ongoing programme to bring social housing below EPC Band C up to a higher standard, administered by the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ).
In this blog, you’ll learn:
- What the Warm Homes: Social Housing Fund is, and how it relates to the SHDF
- How much funding is available, and the two routes it’s allocated through
- Who’s eligible to apply, including how registered charities can take part
- Where Wave 3 currently stands, and what’s next for the scheme
What is the Warm Homes: Social Housing Fund?
Formerly branded the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund (SHDF), the scheme is currently in Wave 3 – its active, current phase – with successful applicants now delivering fabric-first retrofit and low-carbon heating measures across their portfolios. The rebrand to Warm Homes: Social Housing Fund reflects the same underlying programme rather than a new scheme: earlier waves delivered under the SHDF name are the direct predecessors of Wave 3, and the eligibility and funding mechanics carry the same DESNZ oversight throughout.
Wave 3 is the current live phase, and here’s how it breaks down in practice.
What Funding is Available?
- Total allocation: £1.29 billion at the Autumn Budget, following two earlier waves under the scheme’s original SHDF branding.
- Application routes: a Direct Allocation Route for high-performing Wave 2.1 grant recipients, and a Challenge Allocation Route for all other eligible applicants.
- Grant caps: a base cap of £7,500 per property, averaged across a portfolio, with an additional £7,500 top-up for off-gas-grid homes installing low-carbon heating – up to £15,000 per home in total.
- Co-funding: social landlords must provide a minimum of 50% co-funding toward total eligible project costs – a key financial planning factor before committing to a bid.
- Mixed-tenure blocks: Wave 3 simplified the rules for buildings with leaseholders or private tenants alongside social housing, allowing “infill” funding so whole-building fabric measures can proceed without being blocked by the non-social units.
The government’s wider Warm Homes Plan commits £13.2 billion to home upgrades running to 2030, though no further wave beyond Wave 3 has been announced or confirmed by DESNZ to date.
Eligibility Criteria
- Property eligibility: social housing below EPC Band C, funded to reach EPC C or better.
- Lead applicants: Registered Providers of Social Housing, Local Authorities and Arms-Length Management Organisations (ALMOs).
- Registered charities: those owning eligible social housing – as defined under sections 68-70 of the Housing and Regeneration Act 2008 – can apply directly or lead a consortium bid; charities without property can join as consortium partners under another lead entity.
- Minimum bid size: 100 eligible homes, though charitable social landlords managing fewer than 1,000 homes in total are exempt from this threshold.
- Measures: a fabric-first approach – insulation and draught-proofing – paired with low-carbon heating installations where the building’s fabric can support it.
Key Dates
Wave 3’s application window ran from 30 September to 25 November 2024, with successful allocations announced in March 2025. The scheme is now in its active delivery phase, with installations underway across awarded projects. Allocated grant funds must be drawn down and spent by 31 March 2028, within an overall delivery window running to 30 September 2028.
Retrofit Delivery for the Warm Homes: Social Housing Fund
St Mungo’s retrofit project is a good example of what WH:SHF delivery looks like away from a single, uniform housing stock.
St Mungo’s, a homeless charity and supported housing provider, is bringing its own 300-unit portfolio – a mix of self-contained flats, HMOs and hostel-style bedspaces across Bristol and London – up to modern energy efficiency standards, with a significant share of the stock Grade II listed or sitting within Conservation Areas. We’re acting as retrofit consultants on the project – delivering assessment, coordination and design. The combination of vulnerable-occupant safeguarding, mixed-tenure assessment logic, and heritage planning constraints on this project is exactly the kind of complexity a WH:SHF-funded programme can throw up alongside the funding and eligibility mechanics above.
What’s Next?
Delivering against WH:SHF requires PAS 2035 compliance at every stage – assessment, coordination and design – whether you’re a Direct Allocation recipient building on a strong Wave 2.1 track record, or coming through the Challenge Allocation Route for the first time.
We carry out decarbonisation feasibility studies, PAS 2035 retrofit assessments, retrofit design and independent retrofit coordination services for Warm Homes: Social Housing Fund projects.
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