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DWP · Benefit expenditure and caseload tables: outturn and forecast (Spring Forecast 2026)

Universal Credit and equivalents, expenditure

Year ending March 2025 Final

£90bnmillion

Universal Credit and equivalents, expenditure was £90bn in the year ending March 2025, up 9.8% (£8bn) from £82bn in the year ending March 2024.

▲ 9.8% · +£8bn against Year ending March 2024 (previous period)

  1. DWP count
  2. Year ending March 2025
  3. published 26 March 2026
  4. £million, Nominal Terms
  5. row “Total UC and equivalents”
  6. column “2024/25”
  7. cell value 90041.60019208108

Year ending March 2020 to Year ending March 2025

Universal Credit and equivalents, expenditure: Year ending March 2020 to Year ending March 2025ConservativeConservativeLabourLabour025k50k75k202020212022202320242025Year ending March 2020: £64.2bn £ million · published 26 March 2026Year ending March 2021: £79.9bn £ million · published 26 March 2026Year ending March 2022: £75.3bn £ million · published 26 March 2026Year ending March 2023: £73.4bn £ million · published 26 March 2026Year ending March 2024: £82bn £ million · published 26 March 2026Year ending March 2025: £90bn £ million · published 26 March 2026
Published valueProvisional or revisedLatestShaded bands: governments (see labels)Hover or use arrow keys to read a value

What this measures

Spending on Universal Credit together with the legacy benefits it replaces (ESA, JSA, Income Support, working-age Housing Benefit and tax credits) in the financial year, in cash terms.

What this doesn’t measure

Universal Credit alone in years when most support was still paid through the legacy benefits; the series is built to be comparable across the transition.

Important caveat

These are DWP's own expenditure and caseload tables for Great Britain, by financial year. Expenditure is in cash terms unless the metric says real terms, in which case DWP has restated it at 2026/27 prices with the GDP deflator. Caseloads are averages over the year, not the number at any date, and a person can appear in more than one benefit's caseload. Benefits devolved to Scotland leave these tables from the year of transfer, so recent years cover a smaller population than earlier ones for the affected benefits. Forecast years in the same workbook are not shown here.

Revision history

No period of this series has been revised since it was first ingested here. Revisions are recorded automatically when a later release publishes a different figure for the same period.

Source

Publisher
DWP
Publication
Benefit expenditure and caseload tables: outturn and forecast (Spring Forecast 2026)
Release
Benefit expenditure and caseload tables: Spring Forecast 2026, published 26 March 2026
Source file
dwp_outturn.xlsx
File SHA-256
11a591e4a2144ed6a686be6a9ded4e5d5b3b8d4887bd57c1ff0632bd251009de
Retrieved
3 September 2026
Sheet
Universal Credit and equivalent
Table
£million, Nominal Terms
Row
Total UC and equivalents
Column
2024/25
Cell value
90041.60019208108
Geography
K03000001
Unit
£ million
API
/api/metrics/universal_credit_expenditure · /series · /vintages

Government periods

Change during each government, from the level inherited to the last complete period before it left office. Describes the period; does not attribute cause.

Full comparison with chart

Release
Benefit expenditure and caseload tables: Spring Forecast 2026 · publication page
Last updated
26 March 2026
Next release expected
Not yet announced (estimated from the usual cadence)