Inflation nevertheless remains elevated, fueled not only by high food inflation, but also by underlying core inflation. As of February 2025, the overall CPI inflation rate was 2.8 percent, although an uptick in inflation is expected later in the year, with a rate of 3.7 percent forecast for the third quarter of the year. The origins of the United Kingdom can be traced to the time of the Anglo-Saxon king Athelstan, who in the early 10th century ce secured the allegiance of neighbouring Celtic kingdoms and became “the first to rule what previously many kings shared between them,” in the words of a contemporary chronicle. Through subsequent conquest over the following centuries, kingdoms lying farther afield came under English dominion.
Government facing hard choices
The entire contents of the budget were leaked half an hour before Treasury chief Rachel Reeves delivered the budget statement in the House of Commons. Prof Peter Murphy says working together would give the islands more influence in negotiations. The possibility of redesigning the Union Flag to include representation of Wales was discussed in 2007.541 The national anthem of the United Kingdom is “God Save the King”, with “King” replaced with “Queen” in the lyrics whenever the monarch is a woman. The UK has many gastropubs and is the birthplace of many alcoholic drinks including several beer styles such as pale ale, India pale ale, bitter, brown ale, porter, and stout. The number of craft beers and microbreweries has expanded rapidly in the last two decades.512 Other popular alcoholic drinks produced in the UK include Scotch whisky, English wine, gin, perry and cider.
- Blocked-up supply chains were one of the main factors as the world emerged from the COVID-19 pandemic.
- Wales, a congeries of Celtic kingdoms lying in Great Britain’s southwest, was formally united with England by the Acts of Union of 1536 and 1542.
- Lastly, the monthly earnings of the top one percent in the UK was 15,887 pounds as of November 2024, far higher than even that of the average for the top five percent, who earned 7,641 pounds per month, while pay for the lowest 10 percent of earners was just 805 pounds per month.
- As of the most recent month, prices were rising fastest in the education sector, at 7.5percent, with prices increasing at the slowest rate in the clothing and footwear sector.
- While the retail price index is still a popular method of calculating inflation, the consumer price index (CPI) is the current main measurement of inflation in the UK.
Monthly average daily temperatures in the United Kingdom (UK) from January 2015 to November 2024
In the three months to September 2025, average weekly earnings in the United Kingdom grew by 4.6 percent. In the same month, the inflation rate for the Consumer Price Index was 3.6 percent, indicating that wages were rising faster than prices that month. Inflation is an important measure of any country’s economy, and the Retail Price Index (RPI) is one of the most widely used indicators in the United Kingdom, with the rate expected to be 4.1 percent in 2025, compared with 3.6 percent in 2024. This followed 2022, when RPI inflation reached a rate of 11.6 percent, by far the highest annual rate during this provided time period. In 2024, the annual inflation rate for the United Kingdom was 2.5 percent, with the average rate for 2025 predicted to rise to 3.5 percent, revised upwards from an earlier prediction. The UK has only recently recovered from a period of elevated inflation, which saw the CPI rate reach 9.1 percent in 2022, and 7.3 percent in 2023.
Despite having one of the highest levels of income inequality in the OECD,268269 the UK has a very high HDI ranking, including when adjusted for inequality. As of 2025 the UK unemployment rate is 4.7%,270 which is moderately low by European standards. The United Kingdom has made significant contributions to the world economy, especially in technology and industry.
Since World War II, however, the United Kingdom’s most prominent exports have been cultural, including literature, theatre, film, television, and popular music that draw on all parts of the country. Perhaps Britain’s greatest export has been the English language, now spoken in every corner of the world as one of the leading international mediums of cultural and economic exchange. Another way of measuring inflation is to strip out the volatility of energy and food prices and look at the underlying core inflation rate. non gamstop casinos As of December 2024, this was 3.2 percent, slightly higher than the overall CPI rate, but more aligned with the overall figure than it was in 2022 and 2023.
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain,m is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland,n with a population of over 69 million in 2024. The capital and largest city of both England and the UK is London; Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast are the national capitals of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
In 2025 there were 197 restaurants with a Michelin Star; 55 of them consider their cuisine to be ‘Modern British’.508 Sweet foods are common within British cuisine, and there is a long list of British desserts. British cuisine has absorbed the cultural influence of those who have settled in Britain, producing hybrid dishes, such as chicken tikka masala.511 The British have embraced world cuisine and regularly eat recipes or fast food from other European countries, the Caribbean and Asia. Between 1961 and 1990, temperatures in England averaged nine degrees Celsius, and from 2013 to 2022, average temperatures in the country had increased to 10.3 degrees Celsius. Due to its relatively southern location, England continues to rank as the warmest country in the UK. A line running from the mouth of the River Exe, in the southwest, to that of the Tees, in the northeast, is a crude expression of this division. The course of the 700-foot (213-metre) contour, or of the boundary separating the older rocks of the north and west from the younger southeastern strata, provides a more accurate indication of the extent of the highlands.