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United Utilities Group PLC 27 September 2021 UNITED UTILITIES TRADING UPDATE United Utilities announces the following trading update ahead of its half year results on 24 November 2021 . Current trading is in line with the group's expectations for the six months ending 30 September 2021 . Supporting customers We continue to deliver high levels of customer satisfaction and provide services to more than 7 million customers in the North West . Our customer facing teams work incredibly hard to help those struggling financially , with around 200,000 customers currently benefitting from our affordability schemes we are supporting more customers than ever before . We have continued to build on our long track record of innovating to improve service and enhance the customer experience , reflected in our C - MeX and D - Mex scores for which we have earned a reward against both measures for 2020/21 . Leading environmental performance In the Environment Agency's latest annual assessment of environmental performance , we achieved the top 4 star ranking and were assessed as " green " across all six areas that the Agency assessed . This is the fourth time in the last 6 years we have earned this top rating . Securing a low carbon future In July we became the first UK water company to have science - based targets , including supply chain ( scope 3 ) targets , approved by the Science Based Targets initiative ( SBTi ) . The SBTi is widely accepted as providing the gold standard approval for carbon emission reduction targets . Our new scope 3 emissions targets , with measures including both supplier engagement and an absolute reduction , further develop our carbon strategy and demonstrate our ambition to net zero from 2030 . Financial performance Our AMP7 guidance on regulatory performance remains unchanged from that given at our full year results in May 2021 . Group revenue for the first half of 2021/22 is expected to be higher than the first half of last year , mainly reflecting higher consumption only partially offset by the known regulatory revenue reduction . Household consumption remains high as many customers continue to work from home and consumption from businesses has started to return to pre - Covid levels as restrictions are lifted . Overall , the net increase in revenue in the first half of the year is expected to be around 4 per cent . Underlying operating profit for the first half of 2021/22 is expected to be higher than the first half of last year . This largely reflects higher revenue and targeted efficiencies partly offset by higher underlying operating costs , largely as a result of inflationary increases in our core costs .