The UK inflation rate was three percent in January 2026, down from 3.4 percent in the previous month. Between September 2022 and March 2023, the UK experienced seven months of double-digit inflation, which peaked at 11.1 percent in October 2022. Due to this long period of high inflation, UK consumer prices have increased by over 20 percent in the last three years. As of the most recent month, prices were rising fastest in the education sector, at 7.6 percent, with prices increasing at the slowest rate in the clothing and footwear sector. The Cost of Living Crisis High inflation is one of the main factors behind the ongoing Cost of Living Crisis in the UK, which, despite subsiding somewhat in 2024, is still impacting households as of late 2025. In February 2026, for example, 59 percent of UK households reported their cost of living was increasing compared with the previous month, up from 45 percent in July 2024, but still far lower than at the height of the crisis in 2022. Along with soaring food costs, high-energy bills have hit UK households hard, especially lower income ones that spend more of their earnings on housing costs. As a result of these factors, UK households experienced their biggest fall in living standards in decades in 2022/23. Global inflation crisis caused a rapid surge in prices The UK's high inflation and cost of living crisis in 2022 had their origins in the COVID-19 pandemic. Following the initial waves of the virus, global supply chains struggled to meet the renewed demand for goods and services. Food and energy prices, which were already high, increased further in 2022. Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 brought an end to the era of cheap gas flowing to European markets from Russia. The war also disrupted global food markets, as both Russia and Ukraine are major exporters of cereal crops. As a result of these factors, inflation surged across Europe and in other parts of the world but typically declined in 2023 and approached more usual levels by 2024.

In January 2026, global inflation rates and central bank interest rates showed significant variation across major economies. Most economies initiated interest rate cuts from mid-2024 due to declining inflationary pressures. The U.S., UK, and EU central banks followed a consistent pattern of regular rate reductions throughout late 2025. In January 2026, Russia maintained the highest interest rate at ** percent, while Japan retained the lowest at **** percent. Varied inflation rates across major economies The inflation landscape varies considerably among major economies. Sweden had the lowest inflation rate at *** percent in October 2023. In contrast, Russia maintained a high inflation rate of *** percent. These figures align with broader trends observed in late 2025, where China had the lowest inflation rate among major developed and emerging economies, while Russia's rate remained the highest. Central bank responses and economic indicators Central banks globally implemented aggressive rate hikes throughout 2022-23 to combat inflation. The European Central Bank exemplified this trend, raising rates from **** percent in September 2019 to *** percent by September 2023. A coordinated shift among major central banks began in mid-2024, with the ECB, Bank of England, and Federal Reserve initiating rate cuts, with forecasts suggesting further cuts through 2024 and 2025.

The benchmark interest rate in the United Kingdom was last recorded at 3.75 percent. This dataset provides - United Kingdom Interest Rate - actual values, historical data, forecast, chart, statistics, economic calendar and news.

This dataset provides values for FOOD INFLATION reported in several countries. The data includes current values, previous releases, historical highs and record lows, release frequency, reported unit and currency.

Inflation is generally defined as the continued increase in the average prices of goods and services in a given region. Following the extremely high global inflation experienced in the 1980s and 1990s, global inflation has been relatively stable since the turn of the millennium, usually hovering between three and five percent per year. There was a sharp increase in 2008 due to the global financial crisis now known as the Great Recession, but inflation was fairly stable throughout the 2010s, before the current inflation crisis began in 2021. Recent years Despite the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic, the global inflation rate fell to 3.26 percent in the pandemic's first year, before rising to 4.66 percent in 2021. This increase came as the impact of supply chain delays began to take more of an effect on consumer prices, before the Russia-Ukraine war exacerbated this further. A series of compounding issues such as rising energy and food prices, fiscal instability in the wake of the pandemic, and consumer insecurity have created a new global recession, and global inflation in 2024 is estimated to have reached 5.76 percent. This is the highest annual increase in inflation since 1996. Venezuela Venezuela is the country with the highest individual inflation rate in the world, forecast at around 200 percent in 2022. While this is figure is over 100 times larger than the global average in most years, it actually marks a decrease in Venezuela's inflation rate, which had peaked at over 65,000 percent in 2018. Between 2016 and 2021, Venezuela experienced hyperinflation due to the government's excessive spending and printing of money in an attempt to curve its already-high inflation rate, and the wave of migrants that left the country resulted in one of the largest refugee crises in recent years. In addition to its economic problems, political instability and foreign sanctions pose further long-term problems for Venezuela. While hyperinflation may be coming to an end, it remains to be seen how much of an impact this will have on the economy, how living standards will change, and how many refugees may return in the coming years.

Annual house price inflation, simple and mix-adjusted average house prices, by dwelling, type of buyer, number of transactions, mortgage advances, distribution of borrowers' ages/incomes, interest rates, land prices, average valuations, Land Registry data

Sun (2018) develops a narrative index to comprehensively measure the PBC's policy stance (Sun-MP index), based on the additional information on policy-makers’ intentions extracted from the PBC's documents. It is a five-value index on a quarterly basis. The policy stance of -2 stands for strong easing, indicating a strong emphasis on promoting real growth; 2 for strong tightening that indicates a strong policy emphasis on inflation reduction; -1 for easing and 1 for tightening, indicating mild emphases on real growth and inflation control, respectively; 0 for a neutral monetary policy stance.The Sun-MP index measures the general monetary conditions in China from 2000q1 to 2019q4 on a quarterly basis, referring to the PBC's mandate - economic growth and price stability. It is updated regularly (every year). A comparable narrative index but that measures the PBC's policy actions to safeguard financial stability can be found in Klingelhöfer and Sun (2019) [Macroprudential Policy, Central Banks and Financial Stability: Evidence from China, JIMF 93: 19-41].In use of the data, please cite:Rongrong Sun (2018), "A Narrative Indicator of Monetary Conditions in China," International Journal of Central Banking, 14(4): 1-42.