11 of the best outdoor lighting trends for 2024

The latest outdoor lighting trends in 2024 include some ingenious ways to light your backyard in both a practical and stylistic way. Whether it's illuminating your garden, backyard, patio, outdoor kitchens or even the pathways leading up to your home you’ll find plenty of inspiration here. Outdoor lighting is not only important for safety reasons but will also give you more use and value out of your outdoor living spaces too.

Garden lights can help illuminate your garden and even bring attention to specific plants you may have in your backyard. However, smart lighting takes this to another level by allowing you to control your light sources remotely. These lights can also be solar-powered, allowing you to reduce your energy consumption making them cost-effective and eco-friendly solutions too. A great showcase of lighting technology at its best.

Related article: 7 garden lights that are simply magical

Hardscape lighting can help you illuminate stairs, pillars, walkways, and even the edging around your home. Using soft lighting that points downwards helps brighten dark areas but can also be used to highlight specific ornaments or features around your home.

This kind of landscape lighting is perfect if you have a sculpture or fountain in your backyard.

String lights have become iconic over the last few years. These lights can be attached to the roof or poles around your backyard for an elegant look. However, you can also wrap string lights around your patio railings or along your ceiling.

This can be a great way to subtly illuminate your outdoor space to create a warm and cosy atmosphere.

Bollard lights are an elegant way to light the exterior of your home and are a constant presence in annual lists of lighting trends. These lights can come in a wide range of sizes and designs and are perfect for illuminating pathways and driveways. While elaborate designs used to be popular in the past, small and simple bollards are the on-trend choice for 2024.

Modern bollard lights can also come with a built-in solar panel as their power source. This charges the battery during the day and will automatically light up at night.

Related article: Everything you need to know about Bollard lights

Floodlights can help illuminate large sections of your backyard with a small but powerful LED bulb. These lights can be hidden high up on your roof and can even be fitted with motion sensors to help improve the security around your home.

These lights are perfect if you want to light up your entire backyard for an event or function and the motion-sensing functionality means they’ll only light up when you need them to.

Outdoor lamps come in a wide range of shapes and sizes. These lamps are a convenient source of light and can also serve as a legitimate work of art at the same time. Designer outdoor lamps tend to have strong artistic qualities, making them a great decorative solution that will add character to your outdoor area.

Outdoor wall lights are another popular trend for 2024 with many utilising them as a complementary source of ambient lighting wherever they can. Such places include against the exterior walls of the house, garage, shed, fence - even retaining walls. They are particularly useful when an overhead light isn’t a practical option. Many also go for choices that have a partially opaque covering, giving a more muted glow.

Modern fairy lights are made of hundreds of tiny LED lights that are connected together to create a magical glow of light. These string lights can be used around bushes or trees and a particularly popular during the festive season. You’ll see many homeowners use them around the exterior of their homes, around windows and even their front doors, to a quite spectacular effect too.

Related article: 11 outdoor lighting ideas to up the ambience

Underwater pool lights also fall into the category of outdoor lights and can help make your pool look sophisticated and elegant. In 2024, people are embracing colour with a tremendous array of choices available. Many are choosing to match this with the colour and lighting schemes of their homes for a more cohesive look.

Underwater lights can be simple downlights or can be linear lighting around the bottom edges of the pool. The linear option can help illuminate the entire pool in a softer tone, making it glow in the dark.

Sustainable, energy-efficient lighting solutions are becoming increasingly important in today’s world and homeowners are doing their bit when planning their driveway lights. These lights can come in a variety of styles and sizes, but solar-powered alternatives, as already mentioned in this list, are on the rise in 2024. They typically include small solar panels on top of each light, allowing you to illuminate your driveway without the need for wiring to an alternative power source.

Many of the latest trends for 2024 directly or indirectly help reduce your home’s energy usage. This is why motion-activated step lights are the perfect solution to help illuminate your stairs whenever you need to use them. The motion sensor switches the light off when nobody is around, preventing unnecessary energy usage.

While these stair lights can help give your stairs an elegant glow, their primary purpose is safety. These lights can be placed underneath each stair or on the side of each step to help people clearly find their footing.

Related article: Outdoor lights - the complete guide

As you can see, there are some inspiring outdoor lighting trends that you can take advantage of to improve safety and amp up the style of your outdoor living space. Most of these lighting ideas are extremely accessible too, so you’ll have no trouble implementing those that you like, quickly and easily.

Article updated 20th December 2023.