Benefit and pension rates increased from April 2025

Benefit and pension rates increased from April 2025, according to the Department for Work and Pensions, whose Universal Credit quarterly statistics were published on 12 May 2026¹. The uprating raised Universal Credit entitlements calculated from the standard allowance and from additional elements¹.

The same release set out the scale of the caseload. There were 8.3 million people on Universal Credit in February 2026, up from 7.5 million in February 2025, an increase of 830,000 over the year¹. Move to Universal Credit claimants accounted for 650,000 of that rise, or 78.3%¹. In February 2026, 1.7 million people, or 20.3% of the caseload, had joined through managed migration, while the remaining 6.6 million (79.7%) were not part of that process¹.

The composition of the caseload has shifted towards claimants with no work-related conditions. There were 4.2 million people in the "no work requirements" conditionality regime in February 2026, 50% of the total, and that share continues to increase¹. The "searching for work" regime stood at 1.6 million, down from a peak of 2.4 million in March 2021¹. The "no work requirements" group overtook "searching for work" as the largest regime in April 2022¹.

Among people on Universal Credit, 3.1 million were in any employment in January 2026, or 37.8% of the total, compared with 3.2 million, or 43.3%, in January 2025¹. Of those in work, 2.5 million (30.1% of all people on Universal Credit) were in PAYE employment only, 0.5 million (6.5%) were self-employed only, and 0.1 million (1.2%) were in both¹.

On households, there were 7.2 million Universal Credit households in February 2026, of which 6.7 million (93%) had a payment¹. Households with children made up 44% of those with a payment¹. About 3.3 million households, or 46% of all Universal Credit households, had one or more deductions taken from their entitlement¹. In February 2026, 166,000 households received the childcare element, a fall of 13% on February 2025¹.

Why it matters for households

The April 2025 uprating changed the amounts used to work out Universal Credit awards, both the standard allowance and the extra elements paid for particular circumstances¹. Because entitlement is built from those components, the increase fed through to the amounts households were entitled to from that month¹.

The caseload figures show who is affected. The number of people on Universal Credit reached 8.3 million in February 2026, the highest since the benefit was introduced in 2013, and has been rising since March 2022, when it was 5.5 million¹. Most of the recent growth came from managed migration rather than new claims¹. Half of all claimants were in the "no work requirements" regime in February 2026, a group that includes people moved across from health-related legacy benefits¹.

Deductions are a practical feature of payment for many households: 46% had one or more deductions in February 2026¹. The release does not set out the effect of the April 2025 uprating on individual awards, and no estimate of the cash difference for a typical household is given in it¹.

What happens next

Universal Credit statistics will be released quarterly only, each February, May, August and November, from May 2026, following a user consultation held between 17 February and 31 March 2026¹. The next quarterly release covering people, claims, starts, households, deductions and childcare is scheduled for 18 August 2026¹.