In 2024/25 the United Kingdom spent an estimated 313 billion British pounds on welfare, compared with 297 billion pounds in the previous year.

Social protection spending in the United Kingdom reached 360.9 billion British pounds in 2023/24, compared with 360.9 billion pounds in the previous year.

In 2023/24, public spending on social protection in the United Kingdom was 5,239 British pounds per capita, ranging from 6,349 pounds per capita in Northern Ireland, to 4,740 pounds per capita in South East England.

Over two million pupils were eligible for free school meals in England in the 2022/23 academic year, compared with 1.89 million pupils in 2021/22. The issue of free school meals came to the fore during the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020, when free school meals were replaced by a voucher scheme in the lockdown and Easter holidays. Although the voucher system was initially not supposed to extend to the summer holidays, a pressure campaign by English footballer, Marcus Rashford resulted in a government U-turn, on the issue, resulting in the voucher scheme covering the summer.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Social and Welfare Statistics (previously Social Expenditure Database) available via the UK Data Service includes the following databases:

The OECD Social Expenditure Database (SOCX) has been developed in order to serve a growing need for indicators of social policy. It includes reliable and internationally comparable statistics on public and mandatory and voluntary private social expenditure at programme level. SOCX provides a unique tool for monitoring trends in aggregate social expenditure and analysing changes in its composition. The main social policy areas are as follows: old age, survivors, incapacity-related benefits, health, family, active labour market programmes, unemployment, housing, and other social policy areas.

The Income Distribution database contains comparable data on the distribution of household income, providing both a point of reference for judging the performance of any country and an opportunity to assess the role of common drivers as well as drivers that are country-specific. They also allow governments to draw on the experience of different countries in order to learn "what works best" in narrowing income disparities and poverty. But achieving comparability in this field is also difficult, as national practices differ widely in terms of concepts, measures, and statistical sources.

The Child Wellbeing dataset compare 21 policy-focussed measures of child well-being in six areas, chosen to cover the major aspects of children’s lives: material well being; housing and environment; education; health and safety; risk behaviours; and quality of school life.

The Better Life Index: There is more to life than the cold numbers of GDP and economic statistics. This Index allows you to compare well-being across countries, based on 11 topics the OECD has identified as essential, in the areas of material living conditions and quality of life.

The Social Expenditure data were first provided by the UK Data Service in March 2004.

Issue ownership theory posits that when social welfare is electorally salient, left-wing parties gain public support by rhetorically emphasizing social welfare issues. There is less research, however, on whether left-wing governing parties benefit from increasing social welfare spending. That is, it is not known whether leftist governments gain from acting on the issues they rhetorically emphasize. This article presents arguments that voters will not react to governments’ social welfare rhetoric, and reviews the conflicting arguments about how government support responds to social welfare spending. It then reports time-series, cross-sectional analyses of data on government support, governments’ social welfare rhetoric and social welfare spending from Britain, Spain and the United States, that support the prediction that government rhetoric has no effects. The article estimates, however, that increased social welfare spending sharply depresses support for both left- and right-wing governments. These findings highlight a strategic dilemma for left-wing governments, which lose public support when they act on their social welfare rhetoric by increasing welfare spending.

Forecast: General Government Expenditure on Social Protection in the UK 2023 - 2027 Discover more data with ReportLinker!

Government spending in the United Kingdom was last recorded at 44.4 percent of GDP in 2024 . This dataset provides the latest reported value for - United Kingdom Government Spending to GDP - plus previous releases, historical high and low, short-term forecast and long-term prediction, economic calendar, survey consensus and news.

Forecast: Government Expenditure on R&D in Social Sciences in the UK 2024 - 2028 Discover more data with ReportLinker!

Forecast: Household Expenditure on Social Protection in the UK 2024 - 2028 Discover more data with ReportLinker!

In 2025/26, the budgeted expenditure of the United Kingdom government is expected to be reach 1,335 billion British pounds, with the highest spending function being the 379 billion pounds expected to be spent on social protection, which includes pensions and other welfare benefits. Government spending on health was expected to be 277 billion pounds and was the second-highest spending function in this fiscal year, while education was the third-highest spending category at 146 billion pounds. UK government debt approaching 100 percent of GDP At the end of the 2024/25 financial year, the UK's government debt amounted to approximately 2.8 trillion British pounds, around 96 percent of GDP that year. This is due to the UK having to borrow money to cover its spending commitments, especially at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, when this deficit amounted to 314.6 billion pounds. Without significant cuts to spending or tax rises, the current government is aiming to reduce this debt by creating a stronger, more productive economy. Though this is how Britain's post WW2 debt was reduced, the country faces far more structural problems to growth than it did in the mid 20th century. Income Tax the UK's main revenue source Income Tax is expected to raise approximately 329 billion British pounds in the 2025/26 financial year, and be the largest revenue source for the government that year. Value Added Tax (VAT) receipts are expected to raise 214 billion pounds, with National Insurance contributions reaching 199 billion pounds. Although National Insurance rates for employees has actually fallen recently, the rate which employers pay was one of the main tax rises announced in the Autumn 2024 budget, rising from 13.8 percent to 15 percent. Though this avoided raising tax for workers directly, many UK businesses were critical of the move, with taxation seen as the main issue facing them at the start of 2025.

In the 3 years to March 2021, white British families were the most likely to receive a type of state support.

United Kingdom UK: Expenditure: Subsidies and Other Transfers data was reported at 419,179.000 GBP mn in 2016. This records a decrease from the previous number of 419,969.000 GBP mn for 2015. United Kingdom UK: Expenditure: Subsidies and Other Transfers data is updated yearly, averaging 160,609.000 GBP mn from Dec 1972 (Median) to 2016, with 45 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 419,969.000 GBP mn in 2015 and a record low of 5,761.000 GBP mn in 1972. United Kingdom UK: Expenditure: Subsidies and Other Transfers data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by World Bank. The data is categorized under Global Database’s UK – Table UK.World Bank: Government Revenue, Expenditure and Finance. Subsidies, grants, and other social benefits include all unrequited, nonrepayable transfers on current account to private and public enterprises; grants to foreign governments, international organizations, and other government units; and social security, social assistance benefits, and employer social benefits in cash and in kind.; ; International Monetary Fund, Government Finance Statistics Yearbook and data files.; ;

Forecast: Government Expenditure on R&D in Social Sciences, Humanities, and the Arts in the UK 2024 - 2028 Discover more data with ReportLinker!

A monthly-updated list of all financial transactions spending over £500 made by Manchester Mental Health and Social Care Trust, as part of the Government's commitment to transparency in expenditure.

Forecast: Total Expenditure on Gross Social Protection in the UK 2024 - 2028 Discover more data with ReportLinker!

Shrinking state spending in the UK has been accompanied by a profound restructuring of the welfare system, leading to financial insecurity for many people, culminating in extreme stress and serious deterioration of physical and mental health. Theory surrounding the impact of welfare advice on stress is lacking; this paper undertakes an in depth exploration of the experiences of stress among welfare advice seekers, considering these in light of existing substantive theories of stress and coping to generate new insight. A thematic analysis explored the experiences of stress in welfare advice seekers. Four overarching themes and twelve subthemes emerged. They are further understood utilising traditional theories of stress (Transactional Model of Stress and Coping and the Conservation of Resources theory), which then underpin the development of a ‘Stress Support Matrix’ and a holistic theory related specifically to welfare, stress and coping.