Home renovation is often described room by room: kitchen, bathroom, loft, hallway. The data suggests a less photogenic truth. Homes are systems, and renovation frequently disturbs several of those systems at once. According to the 2025 UK Houzz & Home Study, 43% of renovating homeowners upgraded heating systems, 42% upgraded plumbing and 39% upgraded electrical systems during 2024.
Three big percentages, but not three separate groups
The most important thing about those figures is that they overlap. A homeowner can appear in all three categories. Someone replacing a kitchen may alter plumbing, add sockets and change heating controls in the same project. The percentages therefore must not be added to create a fictional total.
This sounds obvious, yet overlapping categories are one of the easiest ways to misread renovation surveys. If 43% upgraded heating and 42% upgraded plumbing, that does not mean 85% did one or the other. Some households did both. The study reports incidence by system, not mutually exclusive market shares.
Heating edges the table, but only just
Heating at 43%, plumbing at 42% and electrical at 39% form a remarkably tight cluster. The difference between first and third is only four percentage points. That tells us less about a clear winner and more about the breadth of systems work involved in renovation.
For homeowners, the practical implication is sequencing. If heating pipes move after flooring is laid, or electrical work is decided after walls are finished, costs and frustration can multiply. Good planning aims to settle concealed and disruptive work before decorative finishes. It is not glamorous, but neither is lifting a new floor because somebody remembered a cable.
System work explains why specialist hiring is so common
The same Houzz study reports that 94% of renovating homeowners hired at least one professional. Electricians were hired by 59% and plumbers by 56%. Those hiring rates sit naturally beside the system-upgrade data: when projects touch fixed services, specialist input becomes common.
Again, the two datasets should not be treated as if they measure exactly the same thing. “Upgraded plumbing” and “hired a plumber” are related concepts, but they are not identical survey categories. The safe interpretation is that both sets of figures point towards substantial professional involvement in core home systems.
Why room-first thinking can create expensive surprises
Consumers tend to see the finished room. Tradespeople have to see the route to getting there. A bathroom is not merely tiles and fittings; it may involve drainage, hot and cold feeds, electrical zones, ventilation and heating. A kitchen is not merely units and worktops; it can depend on power loads, plumbing positions, extraction and sometimes heating changes.
That is why the cheapest-looking early quote is not always the cheapest final project. If scope excludes connected systems that later prove necessary, variations appear. The data does not prove that poor planning causes overspend, but the prevalence of system upgrades makes coordination risk entirely plausible.
The opportunity for trades businesses is coordination, not just installation
When multiple systems are involved, customers need more than individual technical tasks. They need sequencing, clear boundaries and communication between trades. A business that can explain dependencies plainly may reduce uncertainty before work begins.
That does not require becoming a giant contractor. Even a specialist can improve coordination by stating what must happen before arrival, what can happen afterwards, what assumptions the quote makes and which other trades may be affected. In a multi-trade project, clarity has monetary value.
The data also warns against simplistic market sizing
A common temptation is to take the 43%, 42% and 39% figures and treat them as market shares. They are not. They are proportions of surveyed renovating homeowners reporting particular system upgrades. They say nothing directly about project spend, profit margin, hours worked or national revenue by trade.
Likewise, the Houzz sample is not the same thing as the entire UK homeowner population. It is a survey of homeowners participating in the study. The figures are useful signals about renovation behaviour, but responsible analysis keeps the population and question wording in view.
The deeper lesson: the house is the unit, not the room
The strongest insight from these figures is conceptual. Renovation decisions often cross room boundaries because services run through the whole property. Heating, plumbing and electricity do not respect the neat boxes on a mood board.
For homeowners, that means asking system questions early. For trades businesses, it means anticipating adjacent work and explaining dependencies before they become surprises. And for anyone analysing the market, it means resisting the urge to split renovation into tidy, isolated categories when the real house stubbornly refuses to cooperate.
Source: 2025 UK Houzz & Home Study.