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.

In 2023/24 households in the United Kingdom spent approximately 113.3 British pounds a week on housing, fuel & power, making it the category which the average household spent the most on in that year, with transport being the second-highest spending category at 88.2 pounds a week.

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.

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.

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 May 2022, 49 percent of people in the United Kingdom advised that they were highly dissatisfied with the government's response to the cost of living crisis. High inflation has caused an economic crisis in the UK, with 87 percent of people reporting an increase in their cost of living as of March 2022.

This project investigated the roles of the welfare state, education, reductions in family size, and improvements in real wages in the elimination of poverty in Britain, 1904-54. The key national data sets for this analysis are household expenditure surveys for 1904, 1937/8 and 1953/4. The 1953/4 survey is the largest of the twentieth century (12,900 households) and survives in its entirety at The National Archives. It was carried out before the affluence of the Golden Age had been widely distributed. Abel-Smith and Townsend used some of this survey for their The Poor and the Poorest (1965), which was influential in setting the social policy agenda of the 1960s. The project digitised the 1953/4 survey and exploited these early twentieth century surveys to analyse poverty, nutrition and overcrowding among working households in Britain. A web-based centre on living standards provides information on the changing economic circumstances of households. It also allows access to the data, which have a number of other important long-term potential uses for social research.

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.

The FCA presents the findings from a survey undertaken in January 2024 to understand the financial impact of the increased cost of living on adults across the UK. Key findings include: Since January 2023 there has been an improvement in the number of people finding it hard to manage the higher costs of living, although challenges remain for some groups. The cost of living continues to have an impact on the financial lives of some adults in the UK. In January 2024: 7.4m (14%) felt heavily burdened by their domestic bills and credit commitments 5.5m (11%) had missed any of these bills in the previous 6 months 14.6m (28%) were not coping financially or finding it difficult to cope 5.9m (11%) had no disposable income

Cost of Living Index (Excl. Rent) is a relative indicator of consumer goods prices, including groceries, restaurants, transportation and utilities. Cost of Living Index does not include accommodation expenses such as rent or mortgage. If a city has a Cost of Living Index of 120, it means Numbeo has estimated it is 20% more expensive than New York (excluding rent).

Please refer further to: https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/cpi_explained.jsp for motivation and methodology.

All credits to https://www.numbeo.com .

This dataset would surely help socio-economic researchers to analyse and get deeper insights regarding the life of people country-wise.

Thanks to @andradaolteanu for the motivation! Upwards and onwards...

Analysis of the proportion of the British adult population experiencing some form of depression in autumn 2022, including experiences of changes in cost of living and household finances. Analysis based on the Opinions and Lifestyle Survey.

In response to the cost of living crisis, the government of the United Kingdom announced a series of measures to help households in the country. The most widespread of these packages was a 400 British pound energy bill grant announced in 2022, which was allocated to all households in the country. The measure with the highest overall value was the cost of living payment, which will saw approximately eight million UK households on low income receive 650 pounds in two separate payments in 2022, and a further 900 pounds paid in three installments throughout the 2023/24 financial year.

Description and Purpose This data companion pack is a resource intended to frame and be read alongside the linked rapid review of evidence for interventions to address the cost of living crisis (available on the Institute of Health Equity website) . The resource provides intelligence and context on the cost of living crisis in London only, while the accompanying rapid review of evidence for interventions to mitigate the impacts of the rising cost of living on London, contains the recommendations for action.​ This pack is intended to provide a high-level overview of the impacts of the costs of living crisis on London and the need Londoners have for support to deal with the cost of living crisis through intelligence available in the public domain.  This pack identifies how certain groups in the population already experiencing health inequalities are at greatest risk of poverty and worsening health due to the cost of living crisis. Given there are significant gaps in intelligence available, this pack also highlights these gaps and limitations in our understanding. Audience It will be useful for health leaders, analysts, officers, and policy makers from local and regional government, integrated care systems, NHS, academia, VCS organisations and partners across London to support their work to address the costs of living crisis by​ Advocating for the need for action to address the rising cost of living given impacts on health and health inequalities ​ Framing the context for the interventions highlighted in the linked rapid review of interventions​ Engaging communities ​ ​Development of this resource The Institute of Health Equity (IHE), Greater London Authority (GLA) Health, GLA City Intelligence Unit, Office for Health Improvement and Disparities London (OHID), Association of Directors of Public Health London (ADPH), and NHSE have collaboratively produced this report, as part of the Building the Evidence (BTE) programme of work The sources of data available and topics included have been identified from existing published data, working in partnership through iterative discussion The resource is provided in PDF and PowerPoint format to support colleagues in their work to There is no current plan for periodic updates of this resource, though this will be discussed on completion of this programme of work

The average for 2021 based on 165 countries was 79.81 index points. The highest value was in Bermuda: 212.7 index points and the lowest value was in Syria: 33.25 index points. The indicator is available from 2017 to 2021. Below is a chart for all countries where data are available.

The Poverty and Social Exclusion in the United Kingdom project is the largest research project of its kind ever carried out in the UK. It examines levels of deprivation in the UK today. The research aims to answer the following questions:

• What are the best methods for measuring poverty, deprivation, social exclusion and standard of living?
• How are the different dimensions of poverty, deprivation and social exclusion related?
• What is the current extent and nature of poverty and how has it changed?
• What policies best address these problems?

• Firstly, two major surveys into the public's perceptions of necessities and into living standards were carried out in 2012/13: an attitudinal UK Omnibus survey, gathering the public's perceptions of necessities and attitudes to services (held under SN 7878); and a large-scale survey of living standards to examine the nature, extent and causes of deprivation and social exclusion (SN 7879).
• In addition, two qualitative research studies have been undertaken: an investigation into the experiences of living on low income during recession in Gloucestershire, the West Midlands and Strathclyde (SN 7877); and an exploration of the role of the family when coping with poverty in Northern Ireland.

Experimental statistics from the Student Cost of Living Insights Study (SCoLIS) in England. Includes information on the behaviours, plans, opinions and well-being of higher education students in the context of the increases in cost of living.

Focus group interviews were conducted between November and December 2010 in five different locations, including in each of the four territories comprising the UK: Bristol, Cardiff, London, Glasgow and Belfast. Separate group interviews were conducted amongst low income samples (5 groups), non-low income samples (5 groups), and mixed income samples (4 groups). These groups were also stratified by household type (11 groups) and minority ethnic status (3 groups)