DWP · Benefit expenditure and caseload tables: outturn and forecast (Spring Forecast 2026)
Total benefit expenditure
Year ending March 2025 Final
£289.3bnmillion
Total benefit expenditure was £289.3bn in the year ending March 2025, up 8.0% (£21.4bn) from £267.9bn in the year ending March 2024.
▲ 8.0% · +£21.4bn against Year ending March 2024 (previous period)
DWP count
Year ending March 2025
published 26 March 2026
Benefit expenditure, £ billion, nominal terms
row “Total”
column “2024/25”
cell value 289.2989489423778
Year ending March 2025 is the highest figure in the published series: £289.3bn. Rule: highest of the 77 periods published here (Year ending March 1949 to Year ending March 2025).
Year ending March 1949 to Year ending March 2025
Published valueProvisional or revisedLatestShaded bands: governments (see labels)Hover or use arrow keys to read a value
Everything DWP spent on benefits in Great Britain in the financial year, in cash terms, across children, working-age and pensioner benefits.
People often confuse this with
Benefit recipient ≠ Unemployed personMost people on Universal Credit are in work, disabled, caring or not required to look for work. The unemployed are people without a job who are looking for one and available to start, measured by the Labour Force Survey whether or not they claim anything.
What this doesn’t measure
Tax credits and Child Benefit, which HMRC administers, or benefits devolved to Scotland after their transfer.
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.
Change during each government, from the level inherited to the last complete period before it left office. Describes the period; does not attribute cause.