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.

Measures of monthly UK inflation data including CPIH, CPI and RPI. These tables complement the consumer price inflation time series dataset.

Inflation Rate in the United Kingdom remained unchanged at 3 percent in February. This dataset provides - United Kingdom Inflation Rate - actual values, historical data, forecast, chart, statistics, economic calendar and news.

The Consumer Price Index of the United Kingdom was 139.8 in the fourth quarter of 2025, indicating that consumer prices have increased by 39.8 percent when compared with the first quarter of 2015. As of December 2025, the inflation rate for the CPI was 3.4 percent, an uptick from the start of 2025, when prices were rising by three percent. A long period of elevated inflation between 2021 and 2023 peaked in October 2022 and saw prices increase by over 20 percent in just three years. Uptick in inflation in 2025 In early 2025, the UK's main economic forecaster, the Office for Budget Responsibility, predicted that the annual inflation rate for 2025 would average out at around 3.2 percent. By November, however, the OBR had revised this figure upward, with annual inflation now expected to be 3.5 percent. This uptick in inflation is predicted to have peaked in the third quarter of the year at 3.9 percent, before falling to 2.4 percent by the second quarter of 2026. Although this period of higher inflation is far less severe than in 2022, it will no doubt put further pressure on households already struggling with their cost of living. Cost of living woes continue The share of UK households reporting that their cost of living was increasing has been steadily rising since Summer 2024. At that time, less than half of UK households reported rising costs, down from 91 percent two years earlier. By April 2025, however, 72 percent of households said their costs were rising, the highest figure since 2023. With elevated inflation throughout 2025, the pressure on UK households has unfortunately continued, although a crisis on the scale of 2021-2023 will hopefully be avoided.

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.

United Kingdom UK: Real Interest Rate data was reported at -1.195 % pa in 2014. This records an increase from the previous number of -1.378 % pa for 2013. United Kingdom UK: Real Interest Rate data is updated yearly, averaging 1.802 % pa from Dec 1967 (Median) to 2014, with 48 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 6.438 % pa in 1985 and a record low of -12.172 % pa in 1975. United Kingdom UK: Real Interest Rate data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by World Bank. The data is categorized under Global Database’s United Kingdom – Table UK.World Bank.WDI: Interest Rates. Real interest rate is the lending interest rate adjusted for inflation as measured by the GDP deflator. The terms and conditions attached to lending rates differ by country, however, limiting their comparability.; ; International Monetary Fund, International Financial Statistics and data files using World Bank data on the GDP deflator.; ;

About this dataset

Context

The dataset illustrates the median household income in England, spanning the years from 2010 to 2021, with all figures adjusted to 2022 inflation-adjusted dollars. Based on the latest 2017-2021 5-Year Estimates from the American Community Survey, it displays how income varied over the last decade. The dataset can be utilized to gain insights into median household income trends and explore income variations.

Key observations:

From 2010 to 2021, the median household income for England increased by $12,269 (31.01%), as per the American Community Survey estimates. In comparison, median household income for the United States increased by $4,559 (6.51%) between 2010 and 2021.

Analyzing the trend in median household income between the years 2010 and 2021, spanning 11 annual cycles, we observed that median household income, when adjusted for 2022 inflation using the Consumer Price Index retroactive series (R-CPI-U-RS), experienced growth year by year for 8 years and declined for 3 years.

https://i.neilsberg.com/ch/england-ar-median-household-income-trend.jpeg" alt="England, AR median household income trend (2010-2021, in 2022 inflation-adjusted dollars)">

Content

When available, the data consists of estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey (ACS) 2017-2021 5-Year Estimates. All incomes have been adjusting for inflation and are presented in 2022-inflation-adjusted dollars.

Years for which data is available:

• 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021

Variables / Data Columns

• Year: This column presents the data year from 2010 to 2021
• Median Household Income: Median household income, in 2022 inflation-adjusted dollars for the specific year
• YOY Change($): Change in median household income between the current and the previous year, in 2022 inflation-adjusted dollars
• YOY Change(%): Percent change in median household income between current and the previous year

Good to know

Margin of Error

Data in the dataset are based on the estimates and are subject to sampling variability and thus a margin of error. Neilsberg Research recommends using caution when presening these estimates in your research.

Custom data

If you do need custom data for any of your research project, report or presentation, you can contact our research staff at research@neilsberg.com for a feasibility of a custom tabulation on a fee-for-service basis.

Inspiration

Neilsberg Research Team curates, analyze and publishes demographics and economic data from a variety of public and proprietary sources, each of which often includes multiple surveys and programs. The large majority of Neilsberg Research aggregated datasets and insights is made available for free download at https://www.neilsberg.com/research/.

Recommended for further research

This dataset is a part of the main dataset for England median household income. You can refer the same here

The construction output price in the United Kingdom has reached an annual growth rate of *** percent in June 2025 compared to the same month of the previous year. Construction costs had been increasing at a lower rate than in 2022 and 2023, but started rising again slowly in late 2024. The year-over-year growth rate was over ** percent in May and July 2022. Public and private housing was the construction segment with the highest output price increase. How have material costs developed over the years? Several factors influence construction material costs, including supply and demand, regulatory requirements, and transportation logistics. Manufacturing efficiency and global trade policies also play a big part, along with economic factors like inflation and currency fluctuations. In June 2022, the price of construction materials for new houses in the UK were ** percent higher than in 2015. What is the largest component of those costs? Labor costs are often one of the largest expenses in construction projects. That is due to the skilled nature of the work, which has a high demand for specialized trades. The construction sector's labor costs accounted for around ** percent of the sector's earnings in the United Kingdom in 2024. In the past years, the size of labor costs as a share of the construction sector have increased slightly, but they were still lower than in before 2014. As of June 2025, the construction output price growth rate has been revised to *** percent.

The United Kingdom's economy grew by 1.3 percent in 2025, after a growth rate of 1.1 percent in 2024. During the provided time period, the biggest annual fall in GDP before 2020 occurred in 2009, when the UK economy contracted by 4.6 percent at the height of the global financial crisis of the late 2000s. Before 2021, the year with the highest annual GDP growth rate was 1973, when the UK economy grew by 6.5 percent. UK economy growing, but GDP per capita falling In 2022, the UK's GDP per capita amounted to approximately 40,581 pounds, but by 2024 had fallen to 40,157 pounds. While the UK economy as a whole grew during this time, the UK's population grew at a faster rate, resulting in the negative growth in GDP per capita. This suggests the UK economy's struggles with productivity are not only stagnating but getting worse. The relatively poor economic performance of the UK recently has not gone unnoticed by the electorate, with the economy consistently seen as one of the most important issues for voters since 2022. Recent shocks to the UK economy In the second quarter of 2020, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the UK economy shrank by around 20 percent. Although there was a relatively swift economic recovery initially, the economy has struggled to grow much beyond its pre-pandemic size and was only around five percent larger in October 2025 when compared with February 2020. Although the labor market was quite resilient during most of this time, a long twenty-month period between 2021 and 2023 saw prices rise faster than wages, and inflation surge to a high of 11.1 percent in October 2022.

The gross domestic product of the United Kingdom in 2025 amounted to approximately 2.8 trillion British pounds, an increase when compared to the previous year, when UK GDP amounted to about 2.78 trillion pounds. The significant drop in GDP visible in 2020 was due to the COVID-19 pandemic, with the smaller declines in 2008 and 2009 because of the global financial crisis of the late 2000s. Low growth problem in the UK Despite growing by 1.3 percent in 2025 and 1.1 percent in 2023, the UK economy is not much larger than before the COVID-19 pandemic. After recovering from a huge fall in GDP in the second quarter of 2020, the UK economy has alternated between periods of contraction and low growth, with the UK even falling into a brief recession at the end of 2023. Although the economy has grown in subsequent quarters, GDP per capita is still lower than it was in 2022, after a period of negative and low growth. UK's global share of GDP falling As of 2025, the UK had the sixth-largest economy in the world, behind the United States, China, Japan, Germany, and India. Among European nations, this meant that the UK currently has the second-largest economy in Europe, although the economy of France, Europe's third-largest economy, is of a similar size. The UK's global economic ranking will likely fall in the coming years, however, with the UK's share of global GDP expected to fall from 2.16 percent in 2025 to 1.96 percent by 2030.  

In 2023/24 the median annual household disposable income in the United Kingdom amounted to approximately ****** British pounds. Between 1994/95 and 2007/08 the average household disposable income showed year-on-year increases, but after this point, income levels began to stagnate and even decline in some years. Although average household disposable resumed a steady growth pattern between 2012/13 and 2016/17, it has fluctuated in more recent years, and declined between 2020/21 and 2022/23. Economic shocks and disposable income The steady growth of disposable income from 1994 to 2008 reflected the generally healthy UK economy in that period. After the global financial crisis, however, the UK economy was plunged into a deep recession that is mirrored by a decline in disposable income. Although there was a period of recovery between 2013 and 2016, the UK economy has suffered a series of economic shocks since that point. The Brexit Referendum of 2016, and the subsequent economic and political fallout, was followed by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, and in more recent years by the Inflation Crisis and Ukraine War. Living costs putting UK households under pressure Between January and April 2022, the share of people reporting an increase in their living costs compared with the previous month rose from ** percent to ** percent. This corresponded with significant price increases at that time, with CPI inflation surging from *** percent in February 2021 to a **-year-high of **** percent by October 2022. Although inflation did gradually start to decline in the following months, it wasn't until July 2023 that wages caught up with inflation. The surge in energy and food prices that caused this high inflation, was devastating for UK households, leading to the worst Cost of Living Crisis for decades.