Electricity benchmarks by sector

By Paul Johnston, Managing Director, Kinetic Energy Consulting · Last updated 14 November 2026

A typical office in England and Wales that also uses gas or another fuel uses about 88 kWh of electricity per square metre of floor area a year, according to the government's Building Energy Efficiency Survey. Half of such offices use between about 57 and 137 kWh/m². Compare your building with the range for its sector, not a single number, and compare like with like: all-electric buildings use much more electricity.^1,2

Typical use by sector

The Building Energy Efficiency Survey (BEES) modelled energy use in non-domestic buildings in England and Wales for 2014 to 2015. Its published tables give the spread of electricity use per square metre in each sector.^1,2 Figures are kWh per m² of gross internal floor area a year.

Buildings that also use gas or another fuel

All-electric buildings

Source: BEES overarching tables, figures 3.7 and 3.8.² The median is the middle building: half use more, half use less. The quartiles mark the middle half of buildings.

How to compare your own building

1. Work out a year's electricity use in kWh. The analyser gives this from your half-hourly data, scaled to a year if a few days are missing.
2. Find the gross internal floor area in m², measured to the inside of the outside walls on every floor. BEES uses this measure.³
3. Divide one by the other. Or enter the floor area under Floor area (m²) in the analyser's site settings, and it shows kWh per m² for you.
4. Pick the right table. If your heating is electric, use the all-electric figures.

What these figures can and can't tell you

• They are from 2014 to 2015. Many buildings have changed since, for example through LED lighting or electric heating. Treat the figures as a broad guide, not a target.
• Sectors are broad. "Hospitality" covers everything from a café to a hotel with a pool, which is why its range is so wide.
• A high figure isn't proof of waste. Long opening hours, a server room or a commercial kitchen can push use up for good reasons. Half-hourly data shows when the electricity is used, which is the next question to ask.

For what normal half-hourly use looks like in each type of building, see our sector guides: schools, offices and council buildings, leisure centres, healthcare, industrial and warehouses and retail and hospitality.

Display Energy Certificates and CIBSE benchmarks

Public authority buildings over 250 m² that the public often visits must display a Display Energy Certificate (DEC). For buildings over 1,000 m², it is renewed every year.⁴

A DEC's operational rating compares the building's actual energy use with a benchmark that is typical for its type. A rating of 100 is typical, 200 means twice the typical carbon emissions, and 0 means zero emissions.⁴ The benchmarks were prepared by the Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers (CIBSE) for 29 building categories, with electricity and other fuels shown separately.⁴ They are published in CIBSE TM46, Energy benchmarks (October 2008), which CIBSE sells; CIBSE also runs an online Energy Benchmarking Dashboard with more recent data.⁵

You can look up the DEC for a public building, such as a nearby school or council office, on GOV.UK.⁶

Questions people ask

Read next

Base load

What always runs, and how it shapes the annual total.

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Out-of-hours use

Often the reason a building sits at the top of its range.

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By sector

What normal looks like in schools, offices, leisure centres and more.

Read the guide