Northumbrian leads C-MeX as industry performance falls and gap widens

Northumbrian Water pipped Wessex Water to the post for first place in the latest C-MeX survey of household customer experience, the full report on which was published by Ofwat last week.

Results for 2024-25 showed Northumbrian returning to the top spot after a two-year gap, with a score of 80.36. Wessex remained in second place from last year, but Welsh Water entered the top three for the first time, displacing Portsmouth Water, which fell out of the top three into fourth place for the first time this AMP.

Thames remained bottom with a score of 61.44, and Southern remained second from bottom. For the first time this AMP, South West Water entered the bottom three.

Interestingly, the performance gap between the highest and lowest scoring companies increased to 18.92 points, the largest since the programme began.

The industry average score continued a downward trajectory for the fifth consecutive year, falling to 73.99 in 2024–25, down from 75.74 in 2023–24 and 81.62 in 2020–21. However, the extent of the decline this year was not as great as last year – a 1.75 decrease compared to 2.40 for 2023-24, which was the largest decline since the measure began.