Wirral heat pump supplier Stiebel Eltron UK endures ‘challenging’ year as ‘nervous customers’ and uncertainty over Government support hits revenues and profits. Tony McDonough reports

Heat pump venture Stiebel Eltron UK is reporting flat annual sales and profits amid continuing uncertainty in the UK heat pump market.

Bromborough-based Stiebel Eltron UK is a standalone division of a company of the same name based in Germany, set up by Dr Theodor Stiebel in a backyard in 1924. The Wirral operation was established by Mark McManus in 2008.

Mark left the business in spring 2025 to be replaced at the helm by head of technical John Felgate. During his 17 years in the firm Mark established himself as a well-known figure in the Liverpool city region business community.

He set up the operation from scratch and successfully grew the venture by “working long hours” and saw year-on-year growth every year for the first decade.

Stiebel Eltron UK has just posted its accounts for the 12 months to December 31, 2024, on Companies House. The review of the performance of the business was written by Mark before his departure.

Revenues for the year were just under £12m and slightly up on the £11.8m reported for the previous year. Pre-tax profits fell from £475,707 in 2023 to £419,109 in 2024.

Although it is envisaged heat pumps may one day become the primary method for the heating of homes in the UK, take up remains slow due to the cost and uncertainty of support from Government.

Ministers would like to see 600,000 heat pump installations a year in the UK by 2028 but currently that number is only around 60,000 a year.

In the report Mark said: “2024 proved to be challenging for the sales of renewable energy products (in particular heat pumps) as increased energy energy prices, interest rates and uncertainty over Government initiatives and subsidies led to consumers becoming nervous and hesitant in committing to placing orders.

“(This) had an overall impact on the company’s net sales performance for the year. Increases in raw material prices and staffing costs had a direct impact on profitability.

“As a result of the difficult circumstances we took the decision to offer a voluntary redundancy package to members of our team which resulted in six people leaving the company in October 2024.”

In March LBN reported how Mark was overseeing the doubling of the company’s engineer training centre at the Wirral headquarters. The facility was first opened in 2022 in an investment worth £350,000.

In the report, he added: “The company is seeing huge benefits of the £350,000 investment in the training school and showroom made in 2022 which has led to more than 450 installers being trained in our products at Bromborough in 2024.”

Mark also said there had been “excellent growth” in online sales and on the disappointing overall sales he also said: “We are at least comforted by the fact that this picture was also seen in the industry as a whole and market share has been maintained.”