What Is the Household Saving Ratio?

The household saving ratio is the share of their income that UK households have left to put aside, counting both money paid into savings and money paid into pensions. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) publishes it every quarter as part of the sector accounts, and the latest reading is 8.9% for Quarter 1 2026, down 0.7 percentage points from the quarter before¹.

That is the figure most people are looking for when they search for the saving ratio, and it is the one to quote. It means that, across the whole household sector, roughly nine pence in every pound of income was not spent. The ratio is not a measure of how well any individual household is doing, and it is not a measure of wealth: it captures a flow of income over three months, not a stock of money built up over years.

The number moves around, and it gets revised. The ONS first estimated the ratio at 9.5% for Quarter 3 2025, a fall of 0.7 percentage points on the quarter before², and the figure for Quarter 1 2026 came in at 8.9%¹. Early estimates of this kind are routinely revised as more data arrives, which is why the ONS publishes the series with a clear release schedule and flags the parts of its household statistics that are least precise.

What the household saving ratio measures

The ratio answers a simple question: out of everything households receive, how much is left after spending? The ONS defines it as the amount of money households have available to save as a percentage of their gross disposable income, plus pension accumulations¹. Gross disposable income is what households have coming in after tax and benefits; the "available to save" part is what remains once day-to-day spending is accounted for.

Two things follow from that definition. First, the ratio is a sector-wide average. It pools the finances of everyone in the UK household sector, from a household with nothing set aside to one with a large portfolio, so a single national figure can sit alongside very different experiences. Second, it is a flow measure. It says what happened to income during a quarter, not what households own. For the stock of wealth, the ONS publishes separate statistics on household wealth in Great Britain.

The ratio is also not a wellbeing measure. A rise can mean households are comfortably saving more, or that they are nervous and cutting back. The Scottish government's survey data shows how differently households see their own position: the share who said they were managing well financially rose from 42% in 1999 to 56% in 2019⁵. That is a self-reported view of circumstances, not the same thing as the saving ratio, and the two do not move together.

How the saving ratio is calculated, including pensions

The calculation starts with gross disposable income and adds pension accumulations, then expresses what is left to save as a percentage of that total¹. Pension accumulations are included because money paid into a pension is income that has been set aside rather than spent, even though the household never sees it as cash.

That treatment is why the ratio can look healthier than a household's bank balance suggests. Someone whose employer pays into a workplace pension, and who contributes themselves, is recorded as saving through the pension system whether or not they also move money into a savings account. The ONS publishes a separate series showing the contribution of non-pension saving to the ratio, in percentage points, so the two can be told apart⁶.

There is also an experimental alternative measure of the saving ratio, based on a cash basis, published alongside the main series⁷. The main seasonally adjusted series carries the identifier DGD8, and the non-seasonally adjusted version is DG5H⁵. The ONS's Sector Accounts team is responsible for the figures³.

For anyone thinking about their own pension saving, the ratio is a national statistic rather than a target. Guidance aimed at the self-employed suggests a rule of thumb of age divided by two, so 15% of monthly income at 30 and 20% at 40¹⁰. That is a planning convention, not part of how the ONS calculates the ratio.

Latest figures: 8.9% after a 0.7 point fall

The most recent reading is 8.9% for Quarter 1 2026, a decrease of 0.7 percentage points¹. The quarter before that, Quarter 3 2025, saw a fall of the same size, to 9.5%, and the ONS attributed that drop to a fall in non-pension saving².

The pattern across recent quarters has been downward. The ratio stood at 10.9% in Quarter 1 2025, a decrease driven by a fall in non-pension saving¹¹, and at 10.7% in Quarter 2 2025, up from 10.5% in Quarter 1 2025 and driven by a rise in non-pension saving¹². Earlier in the decade it had been climbing: the ONS recorded a steady rise to 11.1% in Quarter 1 2024¹³, and Scottish consumer research put the same move as a rise from 7.9% in Quarter 1 2022 to 11.1% in Quarter 1 2024¹⁴.

One caution on the Quarter 1 2025 figure: two official ONS releases give different numbers for the same period, 10.9% in one¹¹ and 12.0% in the other, both published on the same date. The difference is not resolved.

How the ratio has moved over the past decade

Over a longer view the ratio has swung widely. Parliamentary evidence records that it rose from just over 4% in 2008 to over 11% in 2010, then dropped to 7% in 2012¹⁵. That early period covers the financial crisis and its aftermath, when households cut back sharply and then loosened again.

The 2010s brought a different story. By 2016 the ratio had moved into negative territory, meaning households had nothing available to save as a share of total income¹⁶. In 2017 it fell to its lowest level on record, with data going back to 1963⁴. Then the pandemic reversed the trend: in 2021 the ratio hit its highest level since at least the 1960s¹⁷.

More recently the ratio has settled at a lower level than that peak. The ONS recorded 9.5% in Quarter 2 2023 and 10.1% in Quarter 3 2023¹⁸, before the rise to 11.1% in Quarter 1 2024¹³ and the falls since. The swings matter because they show the ratio responds to events, not to a steady national habit: a crisis, a lockdown or a jump in the cost of living can move it several percentage points in a year or two.

Why early estimates get revised, sometimes sharply

The saving ratio is built from survey and administrative data that arrives in stages, so the first published figure is an estimate rather than a final count. The ONS is explicit about where precision is weakest. In its wealth statistics, lower response rates and a change in how data is collected reduce precision for detailed breakdowns, and London estimates are described as particularly volatile and possibly needing stricter quality thresholds¹⁹.

The same caution applies across household statistics. The ONS's Household Costs Indices, a related family of figures, had to correct an overstatement: the annual growth rate for all households in May and September 2025 was overstated by 0.1 percentage points²¹. Northern Ireland's poverty statistics note that savings and investments were estimated using a slightly different methodology from the financial year ending 2020, so breakdowns from that year are not directly comparable with earlier ones²², and an adjustment is made to correct for very rich households in survey-based results using tax data²³.

Revisions are not a sign the figures are wrong, but they do mean the latest number is provisional. Anyone quoting the ratio should give the quarter it refers to and treat the most recent reading as subject to change.

Does a high saving ratio mean households are better off?

No, and the gap between the national figure and household experience is wide. The ratio is an average across the whole sector, so it can rise while many households have nothing set aside. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation's poverty statistics show the split: among households with savings above £1,500, 13% had fallen into arrears, compared with a much larger share of those with less put by²⁴.

Debt is the other side of the picture. In Quarter 1 2026 the UK debt-to-income ratio was 117.2%²⁵, meaning household debt was larger than annual disposable income. When debt is high, income that goes to repayments is not available to save, and the ratio reflects that. The Bank of England's credit conditions survey tracks whether secured credit is getting easier or harder to obtain, and in Quarter 1 2026 lenders reported a net percentage balance of 15.5 for the past three months²⁶.

There is also a question of what counts as saving. Money paid off a debt reduces the income left over, so it does not appear in the ratio the way a deposit into a savings account or pension does. For a household deciding between overpaying a mortgage and adding to savings, the national statistic offers no guidance: it measures the aggregate, not the choice. The savings and debt guides cover those decisions in their own terms.

How the saving ratio compares with forecasts

The ratio has a habit of surprising forecasters. For 2022-23, the household saving ratio excluding net pension adjustments came out 1.5 percentage points higher than the Office for Budget Responsibility had expected in its March 2023 forecast, even though real household disposable income per person was 1.8 percentage points less than forecast²⁷. Households saved more than predicted while their incomes grew less than predicted.

That combination is a reminder that the ratio is not a simple readout of how households are doing. It can rise when incomes disappoint, if spending falls faster still. Forecasters and analysts watch it alongside income, spending and debt figures rather than on its own.

Who publishes the household saving ratio and how often?

The ONS publishes the ratio quarterly as part of the sector accounts, with the figures also carried in the UK Economic Accounts time series³. The most recent release was 30 June 2026, and the next is due on 30 September 2026³. The ONS also publishes an annual savings statistics publication, released each September²⁹.

The series is available in several forms. The seasonally adjusted household saving ratio is CSX9³, the seasonally adjusted series in current prices is DGD8⁵, the non-seasonally adjusted version is DG5H⁸, and the households and non-profit institutions serving households ratio is RVGL⁷. A further series, NRJS, carries the households and NPISH saving ratio²⁸. The experimental cash-basis alternative measure is published alongside the main series⁷.

For anyone who wants to follow the figures as they come out, the latest UK inflation figures page explains how the ONS release calendar works for a comparable set of statistics, and the Bank Rate, inflation and the UK economy guide sets the saving ratio in the wider picture of household finances.