Real household disposable income per person in the United Kingdom is expected to grow by 2.6 percent in 2024/25, with disposable income growth slowing from that point onwards. In 2022/23, disposable income fell by two percent, after falling by 0.1 percent in 2021/22, and 0.3 percent in 2020/21.

Information about sample sizes, response rates, household characteristics, and expenditure uncertainty metrics for the Living Costs and Food Survey.

This is a quantitative data collection. This study aimed to collect comprehensive information on all forms of resources (including income and assets) and indicative information on deprivation and style of living in order to define and measure poverty among a representative sample of the population of the United Kingdom. This major study was the result of fifteen years research. In 1964 the Joseph Rowntree Memorial Trust agreed to finance pilot studies on fatherless families, large families and unemployed and disabled people which were then to be followed by a national survey of poverty. In 1967-68, following pilot work, interviews were completed with 2,052 households (6,045 people), in 630 parliamentary constituencies throughout the United Kingdom. Another 1,514 households (3,539 people), were later interviewed in a poor area of Ireland, Scotland, England and Wales to secure information about the populations of the poorest areas. There were mixed reactions to the book’s publication in 1979. The concept of relative deprivation provoked much discussion but the issue of multiple deprivation experienced by individuals and families was largely ignored. Comparatively little attention was paid to certain forms of deprivation - such as deprivation at work and environmental or locational deprivation - although the report gave data about multiple deprivation drawn from 60 indicators. Nearly 50 years later this study was reanalysed in a project funded by Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). The ‘Advancing Paradata’ project looked at shifts and continuities in the social process of gathering household survey data about poverty. In part it does this through analysis of survey paradata from the 1968 Poverty in the UK survey. Paradata captures the gamut of by-products of the collection of survey data and is of interest in understanding and improving survey quality and costs. The main focus has been on automatically captured macro items, but this is now expanding to include interviewer-generated observations. For the ‘Advancing Paradata’ project, information available only on paper questionnaires at the UK Data Archive was converted into digitised form and related metadata was created. A sample of 100 survey booklets has been selected for this collection. These booklets were chosen because they have significant quantities of marginalia written on the booklets. These booklets are available via the UK Data Service QualiBank, an online tool for browsing, searching and citing the content of selected qualitative data collections held at the UK Data Service. Names of survey respondents have been removed to protect confidentiality.

Private rented households had the highest percentage of non-decent dwelling conditions at ** percent in 2022, while social housing had the lowest percent with ** percent. For all tenure types, the percentage of non-decent dwellings has fallen from 2006 to 2022. In 2022, there were around 24 million homes in England and about *** million were considered non-decent.

Cost comparison table showing community type costs by location

This statistic shows the percentage of households by tenure in England during 2015 that were in no state or some state of disrepair and the cost per square meter. Private rented households had the highest percentage of dwellings with costs of ** to ** or over British pounds per square meter, at **** percent. This was compared to **** percent of owner occupied households and * percent of social housing.

The Poverty and Social Exclusion Living Standards Survey provided crucial information about the living standards experienced by UK households, with particular interest in issues of income inequality, poverty and social exclusion. Survey fieldwork was conducted separately in Great Britain (England, Scotland, Wales) and Northern Ireland. In Great Britain the study was conducted by the NatCen Social Research on behalf of the University of Bristol. In Northern Ireland the study was conducted by Central Survey Unit (CSU) of the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) on behalf of Queen's University Belfast.

People’s worries about the rising costs of living, using data from the Opinions and Lifestyle Survey collected between 27 April and 22 May 2022 and based on adults in Great Britain aged 16 years and over.

People in Great Britain's experiences of and actions following increases in their costs of living, and how these differed by a range of personal characteristics.

In October 2025, 63 percent of households in Great Britain reported that their cost of living had increased in the previous month, compared with 72 percent in April. Although the share of people reporting a cost of living increase has generally been falling since August 2022, when 91 percent of households reported an increase, the most recent figures indicate that the Cost of Living Crisis is still ongoing for many households in the UK. Crisis ligers even as inflation falls Although various factors have been driving the Cost of Living Crisis in Britain, high inflation has undoubtedly been one of the main factors. After several years of relatively low inflation, the CPI inflation rate shot up from 2021 onwards, hitting a high of 11.1 percent in October 2022. In the months since that peak, inflation has fallen to more usual levels, and was 2.5 percent in December 2024, slightly up from 1.7 percent in September. Since June 2023, wages have also started to grow at a faster rate than inflation, albeit after a long period where average wages were falling relative to overall price increases. Economy continues to be the main issue for voters Ahead of the last UK general election, the economy was consistently selected as the main issue for voters for several months. Although the Conservative Party was seen by voters as the best party for handling the economy before October 2022, this perception collapsed following the market's reaction to Liz Truss' mini-budget. Even after changing their leader from Truss to Rishi Sunak, the Conservatives continued to fall in the polls, and would go onto lose the election decisively. Since the election, the economy remains the most important issue in the UK, although it was only slightly ahead of immigration and health as of January 2025.

Cost comparison table showing 2023 and 2024 median costs by location

Background:
A household food consumption and expenditure survey has been conducted each year in Great Britain (excluding Northern Ireland) since 1940. At that time the National Food Survey (NFS) covered a sample drawn solely from urban working-class households, but this was extended to a fully demographically representative sample in 1950. From 1957 onwards the Family Expenditure Survey (FES) provided information on all household expenditure patterns including food expenditure, with the NFS providing more detailed information on food consumption and expenditure. The NFS was extended to cover Northern Ireland from 1996 onwards. In April 2001 these surveys were combined to form the Expenditure and Food Survey (EFS), which completely replaced both series. From January 2008, the EFS became known as the Living Costs and Food (LCF) module of the Integrated Household Survey (IHS). As a consequence of this change, the questionnaire was altered to accommodate the insertion of a core set of questions, common to all of the separate modules which together comprised the IHS. Some of these core questions are simply questions which were previously asked in the same or a similar format on all of the IHS component surveys. For further information on the LCF questionnaire, see Volume A of the LCF 2008 User Guide, held with SN 6385. Further information about the LCF, including links to published reports based on the survey, may be found by searching for 'Living Costs and Food Survey' on the ONS website. Further information on the NFS and Living Costs and Food Module of the IHS can be found by searching for 'Family Food' on the GOV.UK website.

History:
The LCF (then EFS) was the result of more than two years' development work to bring together the FES and NFS; both survey series were well-established and important sources of information for government and the wider community, and had charted changes and patterns in spending and food consumption since the 1950s. Whilst the NFS and FES series are now finished, users should note that previous data from both series are still available from the UK Data Archive, under GNs 33071 (NFS) and 33057 (FES).

Purpose of the LCF
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) has overall project management and financial responsibility for the LCF, while the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) sponsors the food data element. As with the FES and NFS, the LCF continues to be primarily used to provide information for the Retail Prices Index, National Accounts estimates of household expenditure, analysis of the effect of taxes and benefits, and trends in nutrition. The results are multi-purpose, however, providing an invaluable supply of economic and social data. The merger of the two surveys also brings benefits for users, as a single survey on food expenditure removes the difficulties of reconciling data from two sources. Design and methodology The design of the LCF is based on the old FES, although the use of new processing software by the data creators has resulted in a dataset which differs from the previous structure. The most significant change in terms of reporting expenditure, however, is the introduction of the European Standard Classification of Individual Consumption by Purpose (COICOP), in place of the codes previously used. An additional level of hierarchy has been developed to improve the mapping to the previous codes. The LCF was conducted on a financial year basis from 2001, then moved to a calendar year basis from January 2006 (to complement the IHS) until 2015-16, when the financial year survey was reinstated at the request of users. Therefore, whilst SN 5688 covers April 2005 - March 2006, SN 5986 covers January-December 2006. Subsequent years cover January-December until 2014. SN 8210 returns to the financial year survey and currently covers April 2015 - March 2016.

Northern Ireland sample
Users should note that, due to funding constraints, from January 2010 the Northern Ireland (NI) sample used for the LCF was reduced to a sample proportionate to the NI population relative to the UK.

Family Food database:
'Family Food' is an annual publication which provides detailed statistical information on purchased quantities, expenditure and nutrient intakes derived from both household and eating out food and drink. Data is collected for a sample of households in the United Kingdom using self-reported diaries of all purchases, including food eaten out, over a two week period. Where possible quantities are recorded in the diaries but otherwise estimated. Energy and nutrient intakes are calculated using standard nutrient composition data for each of some 500 types of food. Current estimates are based on data collected in the Family Food Module of the LCFS. Further information about the LCF food databases can be found on the GOV.UK Family Food Statistics web pages.

Secure Access version
A Secure Access version of the LCF from 2006 onwards is available from the UK Data Archive under SN 7047, subject to stringent access conditions. The Secure Access version includes variables that are not included in the standard End User Licence (EUL) version, including geographical variables with detail below Government Office Region, to postcode level; urban/rural area indicators; other sensitive variables; raw diary information files (derived variables are available in the EUL) and the family expenditure codes files. Users are strongly advised to check whether the EUL version is sufficient for their needs before considering an application for the Secure Access version.

Occupation data for 2021 and 2022 data files
The ONS have identified an issue with the collection of some occupational data in 2021 and 2022 data files in a number of their surveys. While they estimate any impacts will be small overall, this will affect the accuracy of the breakdowns of some detailed (four-digit Standard Occupational Classification (SOC)) occupations, and data derived from them. None of ONS' headline statistics, other than those directly sourced from occupational data, are affected and you can continue to rely on their accuracy. For further information on this issue, please see: https://www.ons.gov.uk/news/statementsandletters/occupationaldatainonssurveys.

DEFRA Family Food database:
This is available as a separate Access download zip file for those users who require it.

Latest edition information:
For the fifth edition (November 2023), the DEFRA Family Food Database has been updated; one case has been removed.

Statistics and commentary which give an insight into the standard of living of the household population in Great Britain, focusing on the lower part of income distribution. http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/+/http://research.dwp.gov.uk/asd/hbai.asp https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/households-below-average-income-hbai--2 Source agency: Work and Pensions Designation: National Statistics Language: English Alternative title: Households Below Average Income

Household Expenditure Survey.

Cost comparison table showing 2023 and 2024 median costs by location