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HM Treasury · Public Expenditure Statistical Analyses 2025, chapter 5: expenditure by sub-function

Spending on old age

Year ending March 2025 Final

£162.7bnmillion

Spending on old age was £162.7bn in the year ending March 2025, up 4.4% (£6.8bn) from £155.9bn in the year ending March 2024.

▲ 4.4% · +£6.8bn against Year ending March 2024 (previous period)

  1. HM Treasury count
  2. Year ending March 2025
  3. published 17 July 2025
  4. Table 5.2
  5. row “10.2 Old age”
  6. column “2024-25”
  7. cell value 162692

Year ending March 2021 to Year ending March 2025

Spending on old age: Year ending March 2021 to Year ending March 2025ConservativeConservativeLabourLabour050k100k150k20212022202320242025Year ending March 2021: £125.7bn £ million · published 17 July 2025Year ending March 2022: £128.4bn £ million · published 17 July 2025Year ending March 2023: £137.4bn £ million · published 17 July 2025Year ending March 2024: £155.9bn £ million · published 17 July 2025Year ending March 2025: £162.7bn £ million · published 17 July 2025
Published valueProvisional or revisedLatestShaded bands: governments (see labels)Hover or use arrow keys to read a value

What this measures

All social protection spending on old age, pensions and personal social services for older people, in cash terms.

What this doesn’t measure

Health spending on older people.

Important caveat

PESA classifies spending by function using the UN COFOG framework, so "health" is every public body's spending on health services, not the Department of Health's budget, and "defence" follows COFOG rather than the NATO definition. Figures are outturn for the whole public sector including local government and public corporations. Cash figures rise with inflation; the real-terms table restates them at 2024-25 prices with the GDP deflator. Classification changes are footnoted in the table: student loans from 2011-12, Network Rail from 2011-12 and the treatment of EU transactions after 2020. Total managed expenditure includes accounting adjustments that are not allocated to any function.

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
HM Treasury
Publication
Public Expenditure Statistical Analyses 2025, chapter 5: expenditure by sub-function
Release
PESA 2025, published 17 July 2025
Source file
PESA_2025_CP_Chapter_5_tables.xlsx
File SHA-256
81f2f5db1fd0f0f57d7772be55aeec45ae1f02da551b71e6cf1db2f1d17b9207
Retrieved
3 September 2026
Sheet
5_2
Table
Table 5.2
Row
10.2 Old age
Column
2024-25
Cell value
162692
Geography
United Kingdom
Unit
£ million
API
/api/metrics/spend_old_age · /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
PESA 2025 · publication page
Last updated
17 July 2025
Next release expected
Not yet announced (estimated from the usual cadence)