How does my area compare?

Enfield has the highest spending on Universal Credit per person aged 16 to 64 in 2023-24.

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.

Per person aged 16 to 64, low to high

Under £913
£913 to £1,150
£1,150 to £1,387
£1,387 to £1,624
£1,624 to £1,861
£1,861 and over

Spending on Universal Credit, per person aged 16 to 64, 2023-24, 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 per person aged 16 to 64 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, 2023-24. Rank is for per person aged 16 to 64, 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, 2023-24
Rank
1	Enfield	£596.8m	£1,805	£2,803
2	Barking and Dagenham	£360.4m	£1,581	£2,382
3	Hartlepool	£136.6m	£1,427	£2,334
4	Blackpool	£204.2m	£1,433	£2,327
5	Brent	£568.6m	£1,615	£2,312
6	Haringey	£440.6m	£1,649	£2,307
7	Thanet	£180.8m	£1,284	£2,209
8	Hastings	£117.6m	£1,291	£2,096
9	Middlesbrough	£201.9m	£1,318	£2,088
10	Hackney	£410.5m	£1,535	£2,081
11	Croydon	£552.2m	£1,374	£2,080
12	Great Yarmouth	£121.9m	£1,214	£2,078
13	Newham	£548.8m	£1,468	£2,015
14	Burnley	£120.2m	£1,235	£2,001
15	Oldham	£305.0m	£1,234	£2,001
16	Ealing	£526.5m	£1,379	£2,000
17	Tower Hamlets	£512.3m	£1,534	£1,979
18	Lewisham	£425.0m	£1,410	£1,971
19	Hounslow	£397.7m	£1,339	£1,964
20	Birmingham	£1.5bn	£1,265	£1,941
21	Barnet	£493.9m	£1,235	£1,906
22	Rochdale	£270.2m	£1,171	£1,897
23	Knowsley	£189.0m	£1,187	£1,891
24	Inverclyde	£92.0m	£1,169	£1,888
25	Wolverhampton	£324.5m	£1,180	£1,883
26	Halton	£151.1m	£1,160	£1,867
27	Kingston upon Hull, City of	£329.7m	£1,207	£1,866
28	North East Lincolnshire	£176.6m	£1,113	£1,854
29	North Ayrshire	£148.1m	£1,108	£1,845
30	Manchester	£760.3m	£1,308	£1,842
31	Blackburn with Darwen	£183.8m	£1,159	£1,841
32	Hyndburn	£94.9m	£1,123	£1,818
33	South Tyneside	£163.7m	£1,094	£1,803
34	Harlow	£110.3m	£1,144	£1,802
35	Waltham Forest	£353.2m	£1,253	£1,795
36	Bradford	£620.5m	£1,114	£1,791
37	Southend-on-Sea	£201.0m	£1,102	£1,785
38	Peterborough	£249.5m	£1,125	£1,778
39	Redcar and Cleveland	£143.3m	£1,040	£1,773
40	Walsall	£314.9m	£1,084	£1,772
41	Blaenau Gwent	£73.6m	£1,091	£1,764
42	Tendring	£148.1m	£960	£1,759
43	Eastbourne	£107.2m	£1,032	£1,752
44	Sandwell	£387.7m	£1,109	£1,748
45	West Dunbartonshire	£97.0m	£1,092	£1,743
46	Merthyr Tydfil	£63.0m	£1,072	£1,738
47	Torfaen	£98.4m	£1,052	£1,735
48	Liverpool	£591.2m	£1,175	£1,732
49	Southwark	£413.2m	£1,307	£1,730
50	Tameside	£252.8m	£1,073	£1,710

League table of every local authority for the latest period

Values are per person aged 16 to 64 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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