How many people claim Universal Credit?

DWP publishes Universal Credit statistics with the number of people on Universal Credit, the number of households, and how many are in work. The data covers Great Britain and is broken down by conditionality group, such as searching for work or no work requirements. Releases moved from monthly to quarterly after April 2026, and Stat-Xplore holds the monthly series.

Part of the rise in Universal Credit numbers comes from moving people over from older benefits it replaced, so compare totals across all the benefits it replaced before drawing conclusions about growth.

Official sources: Universal Credit statistics · Stat-Xplore

The latest figure

The newest value is at Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). More on it: People on Universal Credit (Great Britain).

When is the next figure out?

Quarterly bulletins on GOV.UK at 9:30am; the release to 14 May 2026 was published on 18 August 2026, the next (to 13 August 2026) is confirmed for 17 November 2026 and the following for 16 February 2027. Detailed monthly data are in Stat-Xplore, whose API needs a free key

Every official release due in the next two weeks is on the release calendar.

Terms used in this answer

• Claimant count
  The number of people claiming benefits principally because they are unemployed: Jobseeker's Allowance and Universal Credit claimants required to look for work.
• Administrative data
  Information collected by organisations while running a service, such as tax records, benefit claims or hospital activity, and then used to produce statistics.
• Great Britain and the United Kingdom
  Great Britain is England, Scotland and Wales. The United Kingdom is Great Britain plus Northern Ireland. Some statistics cover only one or the other.
• Headcount
  A count of individual people, each counted once regardless of how many hours they work or how many posts they hold.

Where the figures come from

• HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) official statistics
  Find HMRC monthly tax receipts and NICs, annual receipts, income tax liabilities, the tax gap, personal incomes and UK trade data, and how to read them.

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This answer says where the official figures are published and how they are defined. It gives no verdict on any claim. To report an error, send a correction request. More questions about benefits and pensions: all Benefits and pensions questions.