Drinking water in England in 2025: 99.97 % compliance with standards and 33 E. coli detections; over 666,000 PFAS analyses in England and Wales
On 6 July 2026 the UK Drinking Water Inspectorate (DWI) published the summary of the Chief Inspector’s report for England for 2025: 24 water companies supplied 59.74 million consumers and compliance with the standards was 99.97 %. In a letter to the minister dated 8 July the Chief Inspector noted that achieving full compliance remains the challenge.
- Compliance by parameter group was: chemical 99.95 %, indicator 99.97 %, microbiological 99.98 %, pesticides 100.00 %. The companies carried out 3,608,411 compliance tests in 2025 — at treatment works, service reservoirs and consumers’ taps.
- E. coli was detected 33 times: 3 times in 171,550 tests at treatment works, 4 times in 182,499 tests at service reservoirs and 26 times in 156,949 tests at consumer properties — down from over 40 detections in 2024 and 44 in 2023.
- In 2025 companies in England and Wales carried out more than 666,000 analyses for individual PFAS (over 2.3 million since 2012); 2 treated-water samples and 353 raw-water samples fell into the top tier, at or above 0.1 µg/l. Monitoring highlighted 6:2 FTAB as a PFAS of potential concern.
- Mapping identified samples taken outside the correct supply zones — they were removed from the dataset as unrepresentative, and the DWI is reviewing the shortfall process with the aim of introducing monthly automated updates to companies on their monitoring performance. The Compliance Risk Index (CRI) threshold above which financial penalties may apply will fall from 2 to 1.5 at the start of the AMP8 period and to 1.0 by its end.