FOI reference: FOI-2025-2718
You asked
I would like to request information for inflation rates vs amount of universal credit payments in the UK over the last three financial years:
- 21/22 financial year
- 22/23 financial year
- 23/24 financial year
By universal credit this is meant to cover benefit claimants and the payments they're receiving.
We said
Thank you for your enquiry relating to inflation rates and universal credit.
We do not hold information measuring universal credit payments against inflation rates specifically. However, we do produce information on each of these topics separately, so we hope the following will be helpful for your interests.
We routinely publish inflation rates for the Consumer Prices Index including Owner Occupier Housing costs (CPIH), which is the ONS headline measure of inflation, and the Consumer Price Index (CPI), which is the measure used by the Government to set the Bank of England's target for inflation. Published data was most recently updated on 26 March 2025. Table 1 provides the annual inflation rate (percentage change over 12 months); CPIH can be found in column D and CPI in column F. This shows how much inflation has increased over the previous 12 months. Using CPI would give an inflation rate of 9.0% for financial year ending (FYE) 2022, 8.7% for FYE 2023 and 2.3% for FYE 2024.
We also routinely publish statistics which capture universal credit payments at the household-level. Table 14 of our official accredited statistics on the Average Household Income covers average payments up to FYE 2023, with the average payment across UK households being £1050 annually, compared with £848 annually for FYE 2022. Data for financial year ending 2024 is scheduled for release in the Spring. When interpreting this data, firstly please note that estimates are averaged across all UK households and not only for those who are claimants of universal credit, and secondly, these estimates are produced from the Household Finances Survey and, due to survey non-response for this particular cohort, is likely to be an underestimate of those in receipt of Universal Credit.
Specific estimates of universal credit payments only for households that are in receipt of said benefit, along with household counts, may be available to order via our bespoke services. Such services are subject to legal frameworks, resources and agreement of costs, subject to our charging policy. If you would like to request bespoke datasets, please contact the household income and expenditure analysis team hie@ons.gov.uk to discuss your enquiry further.
You may also be interested in the Universal Credit Statistics published by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), which provide the primary official source of information about people and households on Universal Credit in the UK.