What is UK GDP per capita?

GDP per capita (or per head) is GDP divided by population. The ONS publishes it quarterly in its national accounts as real GDP per head, which is the measure to use for living-standards claims because it takes account of population growth.

Total GDP can grow while GDP per head falls if the population grows faster. For international rankings, the IMF and World Bank publish GDP per capita in US dollars at market exchange rates and at purchasing power parity, which can rank countries quite differently.

Official sources: ONS real GDP per head (IHXW) · IMF DataMapper

The latest figure

The newest value is at Office for National Statistics (ONS). More on it: UK GDP per head.

When is the next figure out?

With the GDP first quarterly estimate and the quarterly national accounts, 7am; next release 12 November 2026

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

Terms used in this answer

• Per capita (per head)
  A total divided by the number of people in the population, such as GDP per head or spending per person, to allow fair comparison between places or years.
• Purchasing power parity (PPP)
  A conversion rate that reflects how much the same basket of goods costs in different countries, used to compare living standards and economy size internationally.
• Technical recession
  Two consecutive quarters of falling real GDP. A widely used rule of thumb rather than a legal or official definition.
• Chained volume measure
  The ONS method for showing GDP and other output after removing price changes, by linking year-to-year volume changes together. This is 'real' GDP.
• Real terms
  A figure adjusted to remove the effect of inflation, so amounts from different years can be compared by what they would buy rather than their face value.
• Base year
  The reference period against which an index is set to 100, or whose prices are used to express real-terms figures.

Where the figures come from

• UK labour market statistics (ONS, Nomis and the gender pay gap reporting service)
  How to find official UK figures on jobs, vacancies, zero-hours contracts, strikes, public sector jobs, sickness, inactivity and pay gaps, and check claims.
• UK trade statistics (ONS, HMRC uktradeinfo and Department for Business and Trade)
  Where to find official UK trade figures: the ONS trade bulletin and balance of payments, HMRC uktradeinfo by product code, and DBT country factsheets.
• International Monetary Fund, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, and World Bank data
  How to check UK versus other countries claims with IMF, OECD and World Bank data: which database to use, PPP versus exchange rates, and data vintages.

Related questions

• How big is the UK economy (GDP)?
• How does UK GDP compare with other countries?
• Is the UK in recession?

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 economy, jobs and wages: all Economy, jobs and wages questions.