Civometry calculation

Benefit spending per person, real terms

Total DWP benefit expenditure for Great Britain at 2026/27 prices (DWP outturn), divided by the ONS estimated population of Great Britain at the last mid-year on or before the financial year's end, in pounds per person.

How it is calculated

Numerator: Total benefit expenditure, real terms
Denominator: Great Britain population
Formula: numerator (£ million) × 1,000,000 ÷ denominator, giving pounds per person
Result is measured in: £ per person
Which population is used: latest published on or before
Suppressed when: the numerator is below 0 or the population below 1,000,000, so small numbers are not published as rates

What it covers

Great Britain, financial years 1948/49 through 2024/25 (the span of DWP's real-terms outturn; the population series reaches back to mid-1937, so every year has a denominator).

77 calculated values, most recently for Year ending March 2025.

What this calculation cannot tell you

The numerator is a financial-year total (April to March) and the denominator a mid-year population estimate; the latest estimate on or before the year's end is used, which is the mid-year nine months before the year closes, so the population is slightly older than the spending it divides.
Per person means per resident of any age, not per claimant or per working-age adult - a separate caseload figure measures how many people are supported.
Real terms is DWP's own restatement at 2026/27 prices using the GDP deflator; a different deflator or base year would give different levels (but the same shape).
Great Britain only - DWP expenditure excludes Northern Ireland, whose social security is devolved, so this is not a UK figure.

Check it yourself

Every calculated value stores the numerator, the denominator and the identifiers of the two official observations it came from. Open the numerator and denominator above, take the figures for the same period and category, and apply the formula. If you get a different answer, tell us where it diverges.