Cost of Living Grows as Household Bills Keep Biting

For households in Kempsey, the cost of simply running a home isn’t an abstract debate taking place in Westminster or the City of London.

It’s the electricity bill landing in the inbox.

It’s the Severn Trent direct debit.

It’s filling the car at the petrol station.

It’s the weekly food shop.

It’s the mortgage payment or monthly rent.

And it’s looking at what’s left afterwards.

Against that backdrop, Kempsey.co.uk has looked at the latest accounts of some of Britain’s biggest energy, water and infrastructure companies – and the amount being paid to some of the people running them.

The figures are extraordinary.

Billions of pounds in company profits, seven-figure salaries and, in some cases, bonuses and share awards worth millions.

So what does all of that look like from here in Kempsey?

SHELL – approximately £12.4 BILLION adjusted earnings in six months

Shell reported adjusted earnings equivalent to approximately £12.4 billion during the first six months of 2026 when its dollar-reported results are converted into sterling.

Chief Executive Wael Sawan’s remuneration for 2025 included:

Salary: £1.535 million

Benefits: £77,000

Pension: £307,000

Annual bonus: £2.725 million

Long-term share award: £9.112 million

Total remuneration: £13.756 MILLION

The £9.1 million figure relates to a long-term incentive award rather than a conventional cash bonus, but the overall figure is nevertheless enormous.

To put £13.756 million into a more local perspective, it is equivalent to roughly £37,700 every single day of the year.

That’s one person’s annual remuneration package.

BP – approximately £5.7 BILLION profit in six months

BP reported profit attributable to shareholders equivalent to approximately £5.7 billion during the first six months of 2026.

Former Chief Executive Murray Auchincloss received total remuneration of £5.307 million for 2025.

That included:

Salary: £1.434 million

Benefits: £138,000

Pension-related allowance: £287,000

Annual bonus: £2.594 million

Performance shares: £854,000

Total: £5.307 MILLION

Again, not all of that is a cash bonus.

But £5.307 million works out at around £14,500 for every day of the year.

For a household in Kempsey trying to make a monthly budget stretch a little further, figures of that size can feel almost impossible to comprehend.

CENTRICA / BRITISH GAS – £710 MILLION statutory operating profit in six months

Many homes around Kempsey will recognise another name: British Gas.

Its parent company Centrica reported statutory operating profit of £710 million for the first half of 2026.

Adjusted operating profit was £497 million, while EBITDA stood at £737 million.

Chief Executive Chris O’Shea’s salary increased to £1.133 million a year from April 2026.

His annual incentive payment for 2025 was approximately £1.361 million, with half paid in cash and half deferred into Centrica shares.

That means the annual incentive alone was worth more than many people will earn over decades of work.

NATIONAL GRID – £5.68 BILLION underlying operating profit

Then there’s National Grid.

You might not receive a household electricity bill carrying the National Grid name, but its infrastructure forms a fundamental part of the system that keeps homes and businesses across Worcestershire connected.

National Grid reported underlying operating profit of £5.68 billion for the financial year ending March 2026.

Former Chief Executive John Pettigrew recorded total remuneration of approximately £6.469 million for 2025/26.

Current Chief Executive Zoë Yujnovich recorded remuneration of approximately £1.993 million during the year after taking over the role.

Her salary for 2026/27 is £1.359 million.

Again, remuneration isn’t simply salary or a cash bonus. It can include pension contributions, annual incentives and long-term share awards.

SCOTTISHPOWER – £1.394 BILLION net profit

ScottishPower UK reported net profit attributable to its parent company’s shareholders of £1.394 billion for 2025.

The company also paid a £950 million dividend during the year.

ScottishPower’s latest reporting doesn’t provide an individual chief executive bonus figure directly comparable with the detailed disclosures from companies such as Shell and BP, so we haven’t repeated older figures circulating on social media.

EDF UK – approximately £1.9 BILLION earnings

EDF’s UK businesses generated approximately £1.9 billion in EBITDA during 2025.

There is important context here.

EDF says it invested more than £5 billion in Britain during the same year and plans another £15 billion of investment between 2026 and 2028.

That’s why simply putting company earnings next to someone’s electricity bill doesn’t tell the whole story.

But it does show the enormous scale of the industry supplying something every household in Kempsey depends upon.

And then we get to perhaps the most locally relevant company of them all.

SEVERN TRENT – £861 MILLION underlying profit

Turn on a tap in Kempsey and the company supplying the water is Severn Trent.

Flush the toilet, run the washing machine, have a shower or fill a glass from the kitchen tap and you’re using the infrastructure operated by the company.

For the year ending March 2026, Severn Trent reported:

Turnover: £2.831 BILLION

Underlying profit before interest and tax: £861 MILLION

Of that, approximately £850 million came from its regulated water and wastewater operation.

Those are particularly relevant figures locally because Severn Trent isn’t some distant multinational oil company whose business happens thousands of miles away.

It’s our water company.

Former Chief Executive Liv Garfield received total remuneration of approximately £3.43 million for 2024/25.

However, there is an important update.

Her annual bonus for 2025/26 was:

£0.

Severn Trent says no annual bonus was paid because Ofwat’s Performance Related Pay Prohibition Rule was triggered.

Garfield’s remuneration attributable to 2025/26 was approximately £1.086 million, including salary, pension and contractual benefits.

That is an important distinction from some of the older claims circulating online about water-company bosses awarding themselves huge bonuses.

ANGLIAN WATER – £636 MILLION operating profit

Anglian Water reported operating profit of approximately £636 million for the year ending March 2026.

It isn’t Kempsey’s water supplier, but provides another comparison with the wider water industry.

Chief Executive Mark Thurston’s overall remuneration has been reported at around £1.9 million for the latest year.

Again, that’s not the same thing as receiving a £1.9 million bonus.

Anglian Water has previously confirmed that its executive directors received no bonus for the performance year ending March 2025.

THAMES WATER – £1.282 BILLION underlying operating profit

Thames Water reported underlying operating profit of £1.282 billion for the year ending March 2026.

Revenue reached £3.616 billion.

But it is also a reminder of why headline profit figures don’t tell the complete story.

Thames Water reported statutory net debt of approximately £18.5 billion and invested £2.68 billion during the year.

Chief Executive Chris Weston has a basic salary of £875,500, but received no performance-related pay for 2024/25 following regulatory restrictions.

SO WHAT DOES ANY OF THIS HAVE TO DO WITH KEMPSEY?

Quite a lot.

There are thousands of ordinary financial decisions being made behind front doors across Kempsey every week.

Whether to put the heating on.

Whether the family can afford a takeaway this weekend.

Whether the car needs to wait another month before something is repaired.

How much the weekly shop is going to cost.

Whether there’s enough left for the children’s activities.

Whether an unexpected £200 bill can be paid immediately or has to go on a credit card.

And for some households the choices will be considerably more serious than that.

The cost-of-living crisis isn’t experienced as a percentage on a spreadsheet.

It’s experienced at the checkout in Tesco.

It’s felt when filling up the car.

It’s seen when the energy company emails to say the Direct Debit is changing.

It’s the Severn Trent bill.

It’s the mortgage payment.

And it’s the amount left in the bank account at the end of the month.

Kempsey has changed enormously in recent years.

Hundreds of new homes have been built and more families have moved into the village.

But whether you live in one of the newer developments or have called Kempsey home for decades, everyone ultimately faces many of the same household bills.

And this is why seeing executives receiving remuneration packages worth £5 million, £6 million or even £13 million creates such anger.

That doesn’t mean those executives personally set your household bill.

It doesn’t mean Shell’s £12.4 billion of earnings came from Kempsey residents.

It didn’t.

And it doesn’t mean taking away every executive bonus would suddenly make everyone’s electricity or water cheaper.

It wouldn’t.

These companies employ thousands of people, invest billions in infrastructure and, in the case of companies such as BP and Shell, operate internationally on an enormous scale.

National Grid is investing billions into Britain’s electricity network.

Severn Trent needs to maintain and upgrade thousands of miles of water and sewerage infrastructure.

EDF is investing billions in Britain’s energy system.

Those facts matter.

But so does the other side of the equation.

When you’re supplying electricity, gas or water, you’re supplying something people cannot realistically choose not to buy.

A Kempsey household can decide not to buy a new television.

It can cancel a streaming subscription.

It can postpone a holiday.

It cannot realistically decide it doesn’t need electricity or water this month.

And that’s where the debate about profits and executive rewards becomes different.

THE NUMBERS

Put some of the figures together and the scale becomes clear:

Shell: approx. £12.4bn adjusted earnings in six months

BP: approx. £5.7bn profit attributable to shareholders in six months

National Grid: £5.68bn underlying operating profit

EDF UK: approx. £1.9bn EBITDA

ScottishPower UK: £1.394bn net profit

Severn Trent: £861m underlying profit before interest and tax

Centrica: £710m statutory operating profit in six months

Anglian Water: £636m operating profit

And among the executive remuneration figures:

Shell’s Wael Sawan: £13.756m total remuneration

National Grid’s John Pettigrew: £6.469m total remuneration

BP’s Murray Auchincloss: £5.307m total remuneration

Severn Trent’s Liv Garfield: around £3.43m in 2024/25

These aren’t all directly comparable accounting measures, and the executive figures aren’t all cash bonuses.

But they demonstrate the extraordinary sums flowing through the businesses responsible for some of our most essential services.

For most people in Kempsey, however, the numbers that matter will be considerably smaller.

The supermarket receipt.

The monthly Direct Debit.

The water bill.

The mortgage.

The petrol pump.

And the balance remaining in the bank account afterwards.

There is nothing inherently wrong with companies making profits.

There is nothing inherently wrong with rewarding somebody for successfully running an enormous organisation.

But there is a legitimate question about where reasonable reward ends and excess begins when the customers ultimately funding an essential service have no realistic choice but to keep paying.

That’s not just a national debate.

It’s happening around kitchen tables right here in Kempsey.