Inflation nevertheless remains elevated, fueled not only by high food inflation, but also by underlying core inflation. As of February 2025, the overall CPI inflation rate was 2.8 percent, although an uptick in inflation is expected later in the year, with a rate of 3.7 percent forecast for the third quarter of the year. Another way of measuring inflation is to strip out the volatility of energy and food prices and look at the underlying core inflation rate.
Inflation rate in the UK 2015-2025
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 brought an end to the non gamstop casinos era of cheap gas flowing to European markets from Russia. The war also disrupted global food markets, as both Russia and Ukraine are major exporters of cereal crops. As a result of these factors, inflation surged across Europe and in other parts of the world, but typically declined in 2023, and approached more usual levels by 2024. The UK inflation rate was 3.6 percent in October 2025, down from 3.8 percent in the previous two months, which was the fastest rate of inflation since January 2024. Between September 2022 and March 2023, the UK experienced seven months of double-digit inflation, which peaked at 11.1 percent in October 2022. Due to this long period of high inflation, UK consumer prices have increased by over 20 percent in the last three years.
Inflation is an important measure of any country’s economy, and the Retail Price Index (RPI) is one of the most widely used indicators in the United Kingdom, with the rate expected to be 4.1 percent in 2025, compared with 3.6 percent in 2024. This followed 2022, when RPI inflation reached a rate of 11.6 percent, by far the highest annual rate during this provided time period. 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. Less than a year after implementing cuts to Winter Fuel, the government performed a U-Turn on the issue, and will make it widely available by the winter of 2025.
Inflation rate for the Retail Price Index (RPI) in the United Kingdom from January 2015 to October 2025
While the retail price index is still a popular method of calculating inflation, the consumer price index (CPI) is the current main measurement of inflation in the UK. In 2024, the average salary for full-time workers in the UK was 37,430 British pounds a year, up from 34,963 in the previous year. In London, the average annual salary was far higher than the rest of the country, at 47,455 pounds per year, compared with just 32,960 in North East England. There also still exists a noticeable gender pay gap in the UK, which was seven percent for full-time workers in 2024, down from 7.5 percent in 2023.
- The CPI, along with the CPIH (Consumer Price Index including owner occupiers’ housing costs) are usually preferred by the UK government, but the RPI is still used in certain instances.
- Following the initial waves of the virus, global supply chains struggled to meet the renewed demand for goods and services.
- Although the Retail Price Index is a commonly utilized inflation indicator, the UK also uses a newer method of calculating inflation, the Consumer Price Index.
- Between 1961 and 1990, temperatures in England averaged nine degrees Celsius, and from 2013 to 2022, average temperatures in the country had increased to 10.3 degrees Celsius.
UK government finances
As of the most recent month, prices were rising fastest in the education sector, at 7.5percent, with prices increasing at the slowest rate in the clothing and footwear sector. One of the main consequences of high inflation and low wage growth throughout 2022 and 2023 was an increase in industrial action in the UK. In December 2022, for example, there were approximately 830,000 working days lost due to labor disputes.
