Heat pumps attract a lot of noise, some of it overcooked in both directions. Stripped of the jargon, a heat pump is a proven, efficient way to heat a home with electricity, and whether it is right for you comes down mostly to your house and how it is run rather than the technology itself.
Heat moved, not made
A heat pump does not burn anything or glow like an electric heater. It works like a fridge in reverse, using a little electricity to gather warmth from the outside air, even on a cold day there is heat in it, and concentrate it to a useful temperature for your radiators and hot water. Because it moves existing heat rather than creating it, it can deliver several units of warmth for each unit of electricity, which is why it can beat a gas boiler on energy used even though electricity costs more per unit.
It likes low and slow
A heat pump is happiest producing a gentle, steady warmth rather than blasting out very hot water on demand. It runs at lower flow temperatures than a traditional boiler, so it pairs best with larger radiators or underfloor heating and with a home that holds its heat. This is why the advice is always to insulate and draught-proof first: a leaky house forces the pump to work hard at high temperatures, which is where running costs and complaints come from.
The house makes or breaks it
In a well-insulated home with suitable radiators, a heat pump runs efficiently and cheaply and keeps the place comfortably warm all day. In a cold, draughty, poorly insulated house left to heat in short hot bursts, it struggles and disappoints. The technology is not the variable so much as the building and the way it is run, which is the same lesson as the rest of this site, just with the stakes raised.
Is it for you?
A heat pump makes the most sense if your home is reasonably insulated or you are willing to improve it, if you have somewhere outside for the unit, and if you can run the heating gently across the day rather than in spikes. It is a bigger decision than any single tweak here, often helped by grants, so treat it as a long-term step to take once the cheap fabric improvements are done, not before.