Public spending

The UK government spent £1.37 trillion in 2025-26. That's around £19,650 for every person in the UK.

Adjusted for inflation, public spending has roughly doubled since 2000. It jumped in 2020-21, during the COVID-19 pandemic, and is now higher than at that peak.

This counts all spending by central government, local government and public corporations: on public services, benefits, investment and debt interest.

How does public spending compare to the total size of the economy?

The chart shows public spending, given as a share of gross domestic product (GDP). Public spending was 44.5% of GDP in 2025-26, up from 39% before the pandemic.

Since 1950, it has only been higher in the mid-1970s, in the two years after the 2008 financial crisis, and in 2021, when it reached 52%.

Since 2001, the UK has spent more than it has raised in taxes and other receipts every year. The gap between the lines in the chart is roughly what the government borrows.

The chart maps where public revenues come from (on the left), through to where this public spending goes (on the right).

In 2025-26, the government raised £1.23 trillion. £1.1 trillion of that came from taxes: the largest were income tax (£329 billion), VAT (£211 billion) and National Insurance (£204 billion). The rest came mostly from interest, dividends and the surpluses of public bodies.

It spent £1.37 trillion, so it borrowed around £134 billion, which was about a tenth of all spending.

Social protection was then the largest recipient of spending, followed be healthcare. Debt interest was in third, amounting to £130 billion.

The following chart views a zoomed out view of what the government spends its money on. The size of each box is proportional to how much spending it receives.

Social protection — pensions, benefits and social care — is the largest area of public spending, amounting to £407 billion in 2025-26, a third of the total. Pensions alone cost £155 billion.

Health is the second largest, at £258 billion, a fifth of all spending.

Then come debt interest (£130 billion) and education (£126 billion). The UK spends more on interest on its debt than on schools, colleges and universities, and twice as much as on defence.

Using the tab on the chart, you can see these numbers given as the average per person.

Adjusted for inflation, health spending has almost doubled since 2003-04, from £134 billion to £258 billion. As a share of GDP, it has risen from 5.9% to 8.4%.

Debt interest has more than doubled in real terms, with rising interest rates and inflation since 2022.

Education spending has grown much more slowly, by 16% after inflation, and has fallen as a share of GDP, from 4.8% to 4.1%.

Spending on public order and safety — police, courts and prisons — fell in real terms in the 2010s, but is 18% higher than in the early 2000s.

What if we look at public spending over the long-run? The following chart shows this, by function, since 1900. The biggest changes have been the rise of spending on social security and health, and the fall in defence spending.

In 1950, the government spent more on defence (7.2% of GDP) than on health (3.6%). By 2022, defence was 2.1% of GDP and health 8.5%.

Social security — mostly pensions and benefits — doubled from 5% of GDP in the mid-1950s to 10% by 2022.

Local authorities in England have budgeted £149 billion of day-to-day spending for 2026-27. Most of it goes on a few services: education (£49 billion, which is a third), adult social care (£29 billion), police (£18 billion) and children's social care (£17 billion).

Local authorities include councils, police and crime commissioners, fire authorities, the Greater London Authority and combined authorities. Much of their spending is funded by central government grants, and the rest by council tax and business rates.

Adjusted for inflation, councils' spending on adult social care has risen by a third since 2017-18, and on children's social care by 43%. The rising cost of care has taken up a growing share of councils' budgets.

Spending on other services has risen much less, or fallen: spending on culture, leisure and libraries is around 10% lower than in 2017-18.

The largest council budgets are in the biggest counties: Kent's county and district councils have budgeted £3.5 billion for 2026-27, and Hampshire's and Lancashire's around £3 billion each. Birmingham, England's largest city council, has budgeted £2.7 billion.

Most of the difference between areas comes from how many people live in them. The next chart shows spending per person.

Councils in England have budgeted a median of around £2,050 per resident for 2026-27.

Spending per person is highest in some inner London boroughs: Camden, Halton, Hackney and Knowsley each spend over £3,000 per person. It's lowest in some less deprived areas, such as Bath and North East Somerset, York and North Somerset, at around £1,500.

Part of the difference comes from how much councils get in grants, which take account of deprivation and the need for services such as social care. Part comes from how many schools are academies, which are funded directly by central government.

Using the dropdown, you can look at spending across different services.

Scotland's 32 councils have budgeted £17.2 billion of day-to-day spending for 2026-27. Education takes half of it (£8.5 billion), and social work and social care almost a third (£5.4 billion).

Scottish councils run fewer services than many English ones: police, fire and rescue, and water are run nationally. Adult social care is planned jointly with the NHS through integration joint boards, which councils pay into.

Adjusted for inflation, Scottish councils' spending is budgeted to be 10% higher in 2026-27 than in 2022-23.

Education spending has risen by 13%, and social work and social care by 9%. Spending on culture, leisure and libraries is 8% lower, and on planning and development a quarter lower.

Councils in Scotland have budgeted around £3,100 per resident for 2026-27.

Spending per person is far higher in the island councils, where it costs more to provide schools, care and transport to small, scattered populations: £7,700 in Shetland, £6,800 in Orkney and £5,100 in Na h-Eileanan Siar. It's lowest in Edinburgh and Aberdeen, at around £2,650.

Wales's 22 councils have budgeted £9.4 billion of day-to-day spending for 2026-27. Education is the largest service, at £4.2 billion (44%), followed by adult social care (£2.2 billion) and children's social care (£1.2 billion).

Police, and fire and rescue, are run by separate authorities in Wales, and aren't included.

Adjusted for inflation, spending on social services has more than doubled since 2001-02, and has risen by a third since 2017-18.

Education spending fell by 8% in real terms between 2009-10 and 2017-18, and has since risen above its earlier level. Other services have been squeezed: spending on culture, leisure and libraries has almost halved since 2009-10, and on roads and transport has fallen by a third.

Councils in Wales have budgeted around £2,950 per resident for 2026-27. Cardiff has the largest budget, at £1.1 billion.

The differences between councils are smaller than in England or Scotland. Spending per person is highest in Merthyr Tydfil (£3,300), Neath Port Talbot and Gwynedd, and lowest in Monmouthshire (£2,550).

Councils in Scotland and Wales spend 45–50% more per person than councils in England, where the typical area spends around £2,050. Most of the difference comes from schools.

Scottish and Welsh councils fund almost all state schools: education spending is £1,530 per person in Scotland and £1,310 in Wales. In England, most schools are now academies, funded directly by central government, so councils' education spending is around £820 per person.

Councils in the three nations also provide somewhat different services, and their statistics are collected differently, so comparisons are only approximate.

Total public spending is total managed expenditure (TME), from the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), based on ONS's public sector finances. It counts all spending by central government, local government and public corporations, including investment and debt interest.

Spending by function comes from HM Treasury's Public Expenditure Statistical Analyses (PESA), which classifies spending by what it's for, using the UN's international classification. It covers 'spending on services', around 90% of TME; the rest is accounting adjustments that aren't allocated to a function. The long-run figures since 1900 come from OBR's historical public finances database.

Local authority budgets come from MHCLG's Revenue Account (budget) and Revenue Outturn returns for England. They show day-to-day (revenue) spending, net of income from fees and charges. Capital spending, housing benefit and council housing aren't included.

Council budgets in Scotland come from the Scottish Government's Provisional Outturn and Budget Estimates, and in Wales from the Welsh Government's revenue budget and outturn statistics on StatsWales. They are put on as similar a basis as possible to England's, by leaving out housing benefit, debt financing and other items that aren't spending on services. Scotland's figures are also net of ring-fenced grants, around 2% of the total. Northern Ireland's councils provide far fewer services (schools, social care and roads are run by the Northern Ireland Executive), so they aren't shown.

Figures adjusted for inflation use HM Treasury's GDP deflator, in 2025-26 prices. Most figures are for financial years, shown by the year they end.