How does my area compare?

Birmingham has the highest total spending on Universal Credit in 2024-25.

Help with living costs for working-age people on a low income, in or out of work. Shown in 2026-27 prices, adjusted for inflation so that years can be compared.

Total, low to high

Under £149.6m
£149.6m to £262.1m
£262.1m to £374.6m
£374.6m to £487.0m
£487.0m to £599.5m
£599.5m and over

Spending on Universal Credit, total, 2024-25, by local authority. Boundaries are simplified. London is also shown larger, in a separate box. Northern Ireland is not covered. Every value is in the table below.

More ways to look at itHow ranks change, why spending changed, and spending compared with the expected level

Total or per person

Does the order change when you count per person?

Each line is one of the 350 ranked local authorities. It joins the area's rank for each way of counting. The 10 highest total are drawn in dark lines.

What changed

More people, more claims or bigger payments?

Great Britain, Universal Credit: yearly spending at the rate in May 2023 and in May 2026. The chart splits the change into three parts: the number of people in the age group, the share of them claiming, and the average payment. 2026-27 prices.

What changed: Universal Credit
May 2023	£53.7bn
Population	+£675.6m
Share claiming	+£22.9bn
Payment size	+£10.2bn
May 2026	£87.5bn

The share claiming is the number of households claiming per person aged 16 to 64. Yearly spending here is the number claiming, times the average weekly payment, times 52. It is not the amount paid out over the year. Population after mid-2024 stays at the mid-2024 figure, so later growth shows in the share claiming.

Compared with similar areas

Is spending higher or lower than expected?

Spending on working-age benefits per person aged 16 to 64, 2024-25. We compare it with the level we would expect from each area's share of children and of people aged 66 and over, how deprived it is compared with the rest of its nation, and the typical pay of people who live there. 2026-27 prices.

Expected level = −£567 + £3,670 × share aged 0 to 15 − £115 × share aged 66 and over − £170 × deprivation decile + £257 × ln(median pay) + £432 × Wales + £94 × Scotland. Fitted by ordinary least squares across 348 local authorities. R² = 0.85. Gold dots are above the expected level and grey dots are below it.

Every local authority

Spending on Universal Credit, 2024-25. Rank is for total, and 1 is the highest. Areas with fewer than 1,000 people in the age group have no rank. The first 50 of 350 rows are shown.

Spending on Universal Credit for every local authority, 2024-25
Rank
1	Birmingham	£1.9bn	£1,612	£2,465
2	Manchester	£936.4m	£1,591	£2,232
3	Glasgow City	£894.5m	£1,375	£1,938
4	Leeds	£888.6m	£1,054	£1,598
5	Bradford	£809.5m	£1,446	£2,325
6	Liverpool	£758.4m	£1,492	£2,202
7	Enfield	£757.3m	£2,285	£3,547
8	Brent	£711.1m	£2,001	£2,867
9	Newham	£668.8m	£1,762	£2,405
10	Ealing	£643.5m	£1,660	£2,398
11	Sheffield	£636.3m	£1,097	£1,670
12	Tower Hamlets	£633.4m	£1,884	£2,423
13	Croydon	£631.4m	£1,545	£2,335
14	County Durham	£611.1m	£1,138	£1,847
15	Barnet	£609.5m	£1,501	£2,310
16	Hackney	£563.1m	£2,096	£2,840
17	Haringey	£545.4m	£2,031	£2,840
18	Cornwall	£518.7m	£891	£1,537
19	Lewisham	£512.4m	£1,694	£2,364
20	Bristol, City of	£498.1m	£1,008	£1,419
21	Leicester	£490.1m	£1,267	£1,871
22	Sandwell	£490.1m	£1,387	£2,182
23	Kirklees	£489.6m	£1,098	£1,765
24	Somerset	£484.6m	£824	£1,424
25	Southwark	£481.7m	£1,519	£2,006
26	Lambeth	£479.3m	£1,503	£1,962
27	Nottingham	£474.7m	£1,436	£2,046
28	Hounslow	£457.2m	£1,524	£2,228
29	Cardiff	£450.0m	£1,178	£1,730
30	Coventry	£444.5m	£1,206	£1,812
31	Greenwich	£434.8m	£1,443	£2,054
32	Barking and Dagenham	£432.9m	£1,843	£2,756
33	Waltham Forest	£423.7m	£1,493	£2,135
34	North Yorkshire	£417.9m	£659	£1,136
35	Salford	£413.8m	£1,410	£2,063
36	Walsall	£404.3m	£1,372	£2,232
37	Redbridge	£403.5m	£1,249	£1,880
38	Hillingdon	£402.2m	£1,227	£1,839
39	Buckinghamshire	£399.6m	£691	£1,132
40	Kingston upon Hull, City of	£398.6m	£1,451	£2,244
41	Wolverhampton	£393.3m	£1,402	£2,234
42	Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole	£392.5m	£962	£1,547
43	Bolton	£390.5m	£1,264	£2,052
44	North Lanarkshire	£389.4m	£1,134	£1,768
45	Wakefield	£388.8m	£1,060	£1,702
46	Doncaster	£383.1m	£1,196	£1,941
47	Wirral	£381.3m	£1,162	£1,949
48	Fife	£381.2m	£1,017	£1,653
49	Newcastle upon Tyne	£380.9m	£1,195	£1,750
50	City of Edinburgh	£378.3m	£711	£1,018

League table of every local authority for the latest period

Values are total unless a column says otherwise. Sources: Department for Work and Pensions, Office for National Statistics, National Records of Scotland.

Every measureThe full list, as plain links

Does the order change when you count per person?

More people, more claims or bigger payments?

Is spending higher or lower than expected?

Every local authority

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