A significant rise in government consumption from the Autumn Budget, coupled with continued growth in business investment, will result in GDP growth of 1.5 per cent for 2025
Inflation to rise to 3.2 per cent in January, before falling slowly back to target, and to average 2.4 per cent in 2025. As wage growth gradually cools in 2026, we expect that inflation will return to the Bank of England’s 2 per cent target on a lasting basis. We therefore anticipate just one further rate cut in 2025.
The government is on track to meet its new fiscal rules. However, the planned fiscal expansion leaves no remaining headroom by the end of the parliament. This could limit the government’s ability to respond to shocks if tax and spending plans remain unchanged.
The living standards of the bottom 40 per cent of households will not return to pre-2022 levels before the end of 2027: while real personal disposable income is projected to grow by 1.9 per cent in 2025 and 1 per cent in 2026, this will not compensate for the fall in living standards ? as measured by equivalised household real disposable income (eHRDI) which reflects household composition and housing costs ? between 2022 and 2024.
The rises in the employer rate of National Insurance Contributions and NLW/NMW are expected to harm the profit margins of businesses in labour-intensive sectors such as education, health and social work, real estate and transportation and storage.
Our analysis of housing access reveals growing regional disparities in the United Kingdom: the 2008 financial crisis caused a sharp decline, with an uneven recovery; since Covid-19, variations have widened, reflecting widening affordability, employment trends, and regional impacts of government intervention.
The UK could be the third fastest growing economy in the G7 this year, with GDP projected to increase by 1.5 per cent in 2025. This growth will be driven mainly by the fiscal expansion announced in the October Budget, which will start having a tangible effect during the course of 2025, coupled with continued growth in business investment.
The increase in GDP, though, won’t translate immediately into higher living standards for every household: our projections imply that the living standards of the bottom 40 per cent of households will not return to pre-2022 levels before the end of 2027. Whilst real personal disposable income is projected to grow by 1.9 per cent in 2025 and 1 per cent in 2026, this will not compensate for the fall in living standards that happened between 2022 and 2024.