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

The government of the United Kingdom is expected to spend approximately **** billion British pounds on Universal Credit in 2024/25, compared with just under ** billion pounds in the previous financial year.

In 2024/25 the government of the United Kingdom had an expenditure of almost 1.29 trillion British pounds, compared with 1.23 trillion in the previous financial year. Between 2010/11 and 2019/20, the UK's government spending increased at a relatively stable pace before a sudden spike in spending in the 2020s. After spending just under 889 billion pounds in 2019/20, government spending surpassed 1.1 trillion the following year, due to the high level of public spending that occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic. Main outlays of the UK government The government is expected to spend approximately 379 billion British pounds on social protection in the 2025/26 financial year, followed by 277 billion on health, and 146 billion on education. As a share of GDP, social protection spending has consistently been the government's main outlay for several decades. Health spending has, however, become far more prominent. In the late 1970s, the government spent more on education, and defence than it did on health, with health spending increasing from 3.9 percent in 1978/79, to 8.4 percent by 2024/25. Defence spending in particular was cut significantly after the end of the Cold War, although geopolitical instability is forcing the government to rethink these cuts. Spending cuts politically dangerous for Labour Since coming to power in July 2024, the current Labour government has seen its popularity plummet drastically, with approval ratings similar to the unpopular Conservative government it replaced. Part of the reason for this have been Labour's attempts to reform aspects of the UK's welfare system. Shortly after winning the last election, Labour announced cuts to winter fuel payments for pensioners, a policy they paid dearly for in political capital and one that was reversed by June 2025. An attempt to push through further reforms was effectively defeated the following month, leaving the government in a tricky fiscal situation for the next budget.

In 2019, social media advertising spending in the United Kingdom stood at **** billion British pounds and accounted for ** percent of the total digital ad spend in the country. That year, search advertising was the digital ad format that attracted the largest investements in the UK.

Understanding Society, (UK Household Longitudinal Study), which began in 2009, is conducted by the Institute for Social and Economic Research (ISER) at the University of Essex and the survey research organisations Verian Group (formerly Kantar Public) and NatCen. It builds on and incorporates, the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS), which began in 1991. The Understanding Society Spending Study 2 was conducted by the Institute for Social and Economic Research (ISER) at the University of Essex. The purpose of the study was to test ways to increase participation in mobile data collection. The study comprised two separate sample groups: adult sample members of the Understanding Society Innovation Panel (see SN 6849) and members of the Lightspeed UK Online Access Panel. Respondents in both sample groups were invited to download an app on their smartphone to provide daily updates on their spending for 31 days. Those who did not download the app were invited to complete a daily browser-based online diary. Data for the Innovation Panel sample were collected between May 2018 and February 2019. Data for the Lightspeed UK Online Access Panel sample were collected between July 2018 and January 2019.Further information about the Spending Study, including links to publications and documents, can be found on the ISER Understanding household finance through better measurement webpage. Household expenditure; Survey methods experiment.

This study develops an open economy version of the Dalgaard and Strulik (2014) health deficit model to examine how rising health expenditures affect international capital flows, external balances, and welfare. The government issues bonds in international capital markets, linking health policy to international financial dynamics. Calibrated to the UK, the model evaluates income growth, medical innovation, and population aging shocks under balanced budget and deficit spending regimes. Results show that the source of health spending growth determines the direction of capital flows, and that deficit-financed health spending generally yields higher welfare by enabling additional health investment without higher domestic taxation.

In 2024/25, the UK government spent approximately 13.3 percent of GDP on social protection, compared with 8.4 percent for health, and 4.1 percent for education. These three spending areas have accounted for the highest share of government spending since the late 1980s. Defence spending as a share of GDP has, by contrast, fallen throughout this period, from a high of 4.6 percent in 1984/85, to just 1.8 percent in the mid-2010s. Main sources of revenue During this same time period, income tax has been the most important source of revenue for the government, accounting for almost ten percent of GDP in the 2022/23 financial year. The UK's main tax levied on sales, Value Added Tax (VAT), was equivalent to 7.4 percent of GDP that year, with National Insurance Contributions at around seven percent of GDP. Taxes raised from businesses via Corporation Tax were the fourth-major source of tax revenue that year, at approximately 3.1 percent of GDP. Debt and borrowing Due to several years of the government spending more than it earns, the government has had to borrow large amounts to finance its commitments. This was especially the case at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic when, due to depressed revenues and increased expenditure, the government borrowed more than 314 billion pounds. This increased the national debt from 1.8 trillion pounds, to around 2.15 trillion pounds, or almost 97 percent of GDP.

This is a report on the social care activity of Councils with Adult Social Services Responsibilities (CASSRs) in England. It contains information taken from council administrative systems used to record the process of assessing eligibility to state funded social care and providing services where people are eligible. It combines data from two sources: the Referrals, Assessments and Packages of Care (RAP) and the Adult Social Care Combined Activity Return (ASC-CAR). Information presented here is final and relates to England for the period 1 April 2010 to 31 March 2011. It supersedes the provisional data published on 30 November 2011. National level information is provided in this report; data at a regional and CASSR level is available (together with a whole wealth of other social care data) through the National Adult Social Care Intelligence Service (NASCIS). On 29 January 2019 a new data pack was uploaded to rectify an issue in the RAP mapping file. The issue affected a number of mappings descriptions only, all data remains unchanged.

In 2021, wages and salaries accounted for more than half of employee benefits expenses of Facebook UK Limited. Annual spending on staff wages and salaries amounted to 693 million British pounds, ahead of social welfare costs of 165 million GBP.

United Kingdom UK: Increase in Poverty Gap at $3.20: Poverty Line Due To Out-of-Pocket Health Care Expenditure: 2011 PPP: % of Poverty Line data was reported at 0.000 % in 2013. This stayed constant from the previous number of 0.000 % for 2005. United Kingdom UK: Increase in Poverty Gap at $3.20: Poverty Line Due To Out-of-Pocket Health Care Expenditure: 2011 PPP: % of Poverty Line data is updated yearly, averaging 0.000 % from Dec 1995 (Median) to 2013, with 5 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 0.000 % in 2013 and a record low of 0.000 % in 2013. United Kingdom UK: Increase in Poverty Gap at $3.20: Poverty Line Due To Out-of-Pocket Health Care Expenditure: 2011 PPP: % of Poverty Line 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: Poverty. Increase in poverty gap at $3.20 ($ 2011 PPP) poverty line due to out-of-pocket health care expenditure, as a percentage of the $3.20 poverty line. The poverty gap increase due to out-of-pocket health spending is one way to measure how much out-of-pocket health spending pushes people below or further below the poverty line (the difference in the poverty gap due to out-of-pocket health spending being included or excluded from the measure of household welfare). This difference corresponds to the total out-of-pocket health spending for households that are already below the poverty line, to the amount that exceeds the shortfall between the poverty line and total consumption for households that are impoverished by out-of-pocket health spending and to zero for households whose consumption is above the poverty line after accounting for out-of-pocket health spending.; ; World Health Organization and World Bank. 2019. Global Monitoring Report on Financial Protection in Health 2019.; Weighted average;

Between 2019 and 2023, people living in households in the Asian and ‘Other’ ethnic groups were most likely to be in persistent low income before and after housing costs

In 2022, the total net capital expenditure in the UK in social work activities without accommodation for the elderly and disabled was *** million British pounds. Since 2019, this capital expenditure has reported a steady decrease. This statistic displays the total net capital expenditure in social work activities without accommodation for the elderly and disabled in the period from 2008 to 2022, in the United Kingdom (UK).

Public sector net debt amounted to 93.5 percent of gross domestic product in the United Kingdom during the 2024/25 financial year. Following the COVID-19 pandemic, UK government debt has reached levels not seen since the early 1960s, due to a significant increase in borrowing in 2020/21. After peaking at 251.7 percent shortly after the end of the Second World War, government debt in the UK gradually fell, before a sharp increase in the late 2000s at the time of the global financial crisis. Debt not expected to start falling until 2029/30 In 2024/25, the UK's government expenditure was approximately 1.28 trillion pounds, around 44 percent of GDP. This spending was financed by 1.14 trillion pounds of revenue raised, and almost 150 billion pounds of borrowing. Although the UK government can continue to borrow money to finance its spending, the amount spent on debt interest has increased significantly in recent years. Current forecasts suggest that while the debt is eventually expected to start declining, this is based on falling government deficits in the next five years. Government facing hard choices Hitting fiscal targets, such as reducing the national debt, will require a careful balancing of the books from the current government, and the possibility for either spending cuts or tax rises. Although Labour ruled out raising the main government tax sources, Income Tax, National Insurance, and VAT, at the 2024 election, they did raise National Insurance for employers (rather than employees) and also cut Winter Fuel allowances for large numbers of pensioners. Less than a year after implementing cuts to Winter Fuel, the government performed a U-Turn on the issue, and also held back on more significant cuts to welfare.

During a 2024 survey among marketers worldwide, approximately 83 percent selected increased exposure as a benefit of social media marketing. Increased traffic followed, mentioned by 73 percent of the respondents, while 65 percent cited generated leads.

              The multibillion-dollar social media ad industry

              Between 2019 – the last year before the pandemic – and 2024, global social media advertising spending skyrocketed by 140 percent, surpassing an estimated 230 billion U.S. dollars in the latter year. That figure was forecast to increase by nearly 50 percent by the end of the decade, exceeding 345 billion dollars in 2029. As of 2024, the social media networks with the most monthly active users were Facebook, with over three billion, and YouTube, with more than 2.5 billion.

              Pros and cons of GenAI for social media marketing

              According to another 2024 survey, generative artificial intelligence's (GenAI) leading benefits for social media marketing according to professionals worldwide included increased efficiency and easier idea generation. The third place was a tie between increased content production and enhanced creativity. All those advantages were cited by between 33 and 38 percent of the interviewees. As for GenAI's top challenges for global social media marketing,
              maintaining authenticity and the value of human creativity ranked first, mentioned by 43 and 40 percent of the respondents, respectively. Another 35 percent deemed ensuring the content resonates as an obstacle.

The ad spending in the 'Social Media Advertising' segment of the advertising market in the United Kingdom was modeled to amount to ************* U.S. dollars in 2024. Following a continuous upward trend, the ad spending has risen by ************ U.S. dollars since 2017. Between 2024 and 2030, the ad spending will rise by ************ U.S. dollars, continuing its consistent upward trajectory.Further information about the methodology, more market segments, and metrics can be found on the dedicated Market Insights page on Social Media Advertising.

UK TikTok users were spending over ** minutes on the app on an average day in 2020. This was an increase of **** percent compared to 2019, when the corresponding amount of time was ** minutes. It is forecast that less time will be spent on TikTok in the upcoming years, but the platform will still remain actively used.

The ad spending in the 'Influencer Advertising' segment of the advertising market in the United Kingdom was modeled to be ************ U.S. dollars in 2024. Following a continuous upward trend, the ad spending has risen by ************ U.S. dollars since 2017. Between 2024 and 2030, the ad spending will rise by ************** U.S. dollars, continuing its consistent upward trajectory.Further information about the methodology, more market segments, and metrics can be found on the dedicated Market Insights page on Influencer Advertising.