Public spending on services by function, UK
What the UK public sector spent on services in each of the ten functions the UN's classification uses, and on EU transactions, £ billion, in the latest outturn year and the year before, from HM Treasury's Public Expenditure Statistical Analyses.
Public spending on services
£1,227.6bn
2025–26
Verified against source, 30 October 2026, 11:49 UTC- 2025–26
- 2024–25
Source: HM Treasury. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
Data table
11 rows
| Category | 2025–26 | 2024–25 |
|---|---|---|
| Social protection | £407.3bn | £386.3bn |
| Health | £257.5bn | £242.4bn |
| General public services | £165.5bn | £160.2bn |
| Education | £125.7bn | £123.0bn |
| Economic affairs | £94.0bn | £88.0bn |
| Defence | £65.4bn | £63.7bn |
| Public order and safety | £55.7bn | £51.8bn |
| Housing and community amenities | £22.5bn | £21.7bn |
| Environment protection | £19.2bn | £17.3bn |
| Recreation, culture and religion | £15.1bn | £13.6bn |
| EU transactions | −£0.2bn | −£1.4bn |
Source and licence
- Publisher
- HM Treasury
- Check it yourself
- https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/public-expenditure-statistical-analyses-pesa
- Licence
- Open Government Licence v3.0 – Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
- Retrieved
- 30 October 2026, 11:44 UTC
- Raw files fetched
- https://www.gov.uk/api/content/government/statistics/public-expenditure-statistical-analyses-2026SHA-256 d7191c95aae043b3b13bf66f17a6b8dbec74c9c12cff3bdb9550cc69ac8794bf · 19,262 bytes
- https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6a5772e09e63154454413700/PESA_2026_CP_Chapter_4_tables.xlsxSHA-256 e2e096cbd40755ea7452a27c603ae5d9542bd65beeb52245f092c5daac0b6b3a · 69,055 bytes
Verification
Verified against source, 30 October 2026, 11:49 UTC Run at 30 October 2026, 11:49 UTC; 22 of 22 figures matched the live source.
| Result | Check | Detail |
|---|---|---|
| Pass | Provenance recorded | HM Treasury; Open Government Licence v3.0; retrieved 2026-10-30T11:44:29Z; 2 raw file(s) |
| Pass | Raw files match recorded SHA-256 | 2 of 2 files intact |
| Pass | Re-parsing raw files reproduces figures | 22 of 22 figures and the headline reproduced |
| Pass | Figures are finite numbers | 22 figures, 0 invalid |
| Pass | Live source matches every figure | 22 of 22 figures match exactly after downloading 2 source file(s) again (2 byte-identical); the headline matches |
| Pass | GOV.UK table is current | latest period 2025/26 ended 213 days before retrieval (limit 500), from PESA 2026 Chapter 4 Tables |
| Pass | Table 5.2 in £ million agrees | 22 of 22 figures match https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6a5772f59e63154454413701/PESA_2026_CP_Chapter_5_tables.xlsx, sheet 5_2, at £0.1 billion; in each of its 5 outturn years the functions add up to its total within £1m of rounding, and the total stored here matches it |
| Pass | Source page answers | https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/public-expenditure-statistical-analyses-pesa – HTTP 200 |
Notes
- Outturn in cash terms, so figures are not adjusted for inflation. Public sector expenditure on services excludes accounting adjustments, which bring it to Total Managed Expenditure.
- HM Treasury's table holds every year since 2003–04; the hub shows the latest outturn year and the year before. Spending on general public services includes interest on the public debt.