UK CPIH inflation rate

Source: Office for National Statistics (ONS), series L55O. Monthly, usually a Wednesday in the middle of the month, 7am; published with CPI; next release 21 October 2026

UK CPIH inflation rate: every value, by year, with a CSV download →

What it measures

CPIH is the Consumer Prices Index including owner occupiers' housing costs. It covers everything in CPI and adds two things CPI leaves out: the cost of owning and living in your own home, estimated from the rents paid for equivalent properties (a method called rental equivalence), and council tax. The ONS treats CPIH as its lead measure of consumer price inflation, and uses it to adjust earnings into real terms. The figure shown is the 12-month rate. See CPIH in the glossary.

How to read it

CPIH and CPI usually move together, but they can differ by several tenths of a percentage point when rents and housing costs are rising faster or slower than other prices. Owner occupiers' housing costs are a large share of CPIH, so a change in private rent growth feeds through to CPIH over time. Like CPI, the 12-month rate compares a month with the same month a year earlier, and published figures are not normally revised. When a claim uses "inflation", check whether it is CPIH, CPI or RPI, and which month. For the ONS's own real-terms pay figures, CPIH is the deflator, so compare real pay with CPIH rather than CPI.

Background

CPIH was first published by the ONS in 2013. After a review of consumer price statistics, the ONS made CPIH its lead measure of inflation in March 2017. The ONS series runs from January 1989, using modelled estimates for the early years. In the series the highest 12-month rate is 9.6% in October 2022. The UK Statistics Authority has said that RPI will be brought into line with CPIH methods from 2030, which makes CPIH increasingly important for long-term contracts.

Other parts of the UK

ONS consumer price inflation bulletin (UK only; no official regional CPIH is published)

Why is CPIH usually different from CPI?

CPIH includes owner occupiers' housing costs and council tax, which together carry a large weight in the index. When housing costs are rising faster than other prices, CPIH tends to be higher than CPI, and when they rise more slowly it tends to be lower. The ONS publishes both on the same day, so you can compare them for any month.

How does CPIH measure the cost of owning a home?

The ONS uses rental equivalence: it estimates what owner occupiers would pay to rent a home like their own, using private rent data. House prices and mortgage interest are not used directly, because they reflect investment and borrowing as well as the cost of living in a home. The method is explained in the ONS quality and methodology information for consumer price inflation.

Which inflation measure does the ONS use for real wages?

The ONS adjusts average weekly earnings for inflation using CPIH, its lead measure, and publishes a supplementary version using CPI. Its labour market bulletin states both. A claim that pay is rising or falling in real terms should say which index it used, because the two can give different answers in the same month.

Related questions

• What is the difference between CPI, CPIH and RPI?
• How is UK inflation measured?
• Are wages rising faster than inflation in the UK?

More on this source: UK Statistics Authority and Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR)