GOV.UK published its Heat Training Grant 2025 Mid-scheme Review on 4 June 2026. The headline number is strong: 94% of surveyed installers were satisfied or very satisfied with the training they received through the grant.
That is worth writing about because it is not just another policy announcement. It is a signal that more heating engineers are being pulled toward heat pump work, and many of them will soon be taking their first live jobs, their first MCS files, or their first serious design handovers.
For Vertex, the lesson is simple. Better training helps the market. Better survey evidence helps the actual job.
What GOV.UK published
The Heat Training Grant gives eligible heating engineers grants of up to £500 toward heat pump or heat network installation training in England. The latest GOV.UK review covers people who completed heat pump installation training through the scheme.
These are the figures that matter most to installer businesses:
| Finding | What it means in plain English |
|---|---|
| 94% were satisfied or very satisfied with training | Training quality appears strong enough to build confidence in the market. |
| 95% had recommended, or were likely to recommend, the training | Word of mouth is moving in the right direction for installer upskilling. |
| 47% said they would not have completed heat pump installation training without the grant | The grant is not cosmetic. It is pulling engineers into the route who may not have trained otherwise. |
| 33% had installed at least one heat pump after training | A lot of trained people are still early in the live-installation journey. |
| 70% of those active installers completed a first install within three months of training | The move from course to live job can happen quickly. |
| 77% were not MCS certified at the time of training | Many trainees are not yet operating inside a mature MCS delivery file. |
GOV.UK also says the programme has supported over 11,300 courses since it began, and that the Warm Homes Plan commits £7 million per year for the Heat Training Grant until 2029.
Why this matters for installer teams
The review is positive. It suggests heat pump training is landing well with engineers. But it also shows a market with a lot of people moving from training into practice.
That is where installer businesses need discipline. A first heat pump job should not become a live experiment in missing evidence. The customer still expects a clean quote. The designer still needs usable inputs. The installer still needs the site facts. The MCS file still needs to stand up later.
Training answers the competence question. It does not answer the property question.
The risk is the handover, not the training certificate
A trained engineer can still be let down by a weak survey pack. The most common risk is not that someone has attended the wrong course. It is that the business has not captured enough site evidence before quote, design or installation.
That matters most on early jobs because there is less margin for loose assumptions. If the external-unit position is vague, if the consumer-unit photos are missing, if the cylinder cupboard has not been checked, or if the room measurements are not reliable, the job starts to rely on memory and guesswork.
Good installer teams do the opposite. They make the first jobs easier to review by standardising the evidence.
What survey evidence should protect
A useful heat pump survey should protect the job before it moves too far. It should give office, design and install teams the same view of the property.
- External unit siting: proposed position, access, boundary context, visible constraints and service route.
- Heat loss inputs: room dimensions, fabric assumptions, glazing, insulation notes, emitters and evidence gaps.
- Plant and cylinder context: existing boiler, cylinder location, cupboard space, pipework notes and practical access.
- Electrical evidence: meter, consumer unit, isolator context, spare ways where visible and likely cable route issues.
- Photos and assumptions: enough labelled evidence that the next person does not have to interpret a vague visit note.
- MCS and handover trail: the documents and decisions that support quote, design, installation and customer handover.
For room-by-room inputs, the related route is the heat loss survey company page. For air-source-specific siting and MCS evidence, use the ASHP survey page.
Checklist for first heat pump jobs after training
If newly trained engineers are joining the heat pump route, build a simple first-job control before volume increases.
- Start with a standard survey checklist. Do not let each person decide their own evidence standard.
- Review the first few survey packs before quote. Catch weak photos, missing measurements and loose assumptions early.
- Separate survey, design and install decisions. A site visit should not silently become a final design decision.
- Keep the customer wording careful. Say what is being checked and what is still subject to design confirmation.
- Make heat loss assumptions visible. Hidden assumptions are harder to defend than cautious, written ones.
- Keep one file per job. Survey notes, photographs, calculations, customer communication and handover evidence need to be easy to retrieve.
- Use mentoring on early jobs. Pair training confidence with experienced file review until the route becomes routine.
- Heat pump survey company for installer-ready site evidence before quote and design.
- ASHP survey for air source heat pump siting, external-unit and MCS evidence.
- Heat loss survey company for room-by-room inputs and calculation support.
- Sample report to check the report format before a live job.
- Guide price builder to price a survey route before booking.
What to say on social or email
The useful message is not "more installers are trained." The useful message is that training is only part of a professional heat pump route.
That wording is honest, installer-facing and directly tied to the work that prevents callbacks.
Sources
- GOV.UK: Research reveals strong satisfaction among heat pump trainees, published 4 June 2026.
- GOV.UK: Heat Training Grant 2025 Mid-scheme Review: heat pump installers, published 4 June 2026.
- GOV.UK commentary: Heat Training Grant 2025 Mid-scheme Review survey of HTG graduates, published 4 June 2026.