Suffrago UK Data Hub
RankingsVerificationMethods

Independent service run by Suffrago – not an official government website. Every figure comes from an official UK publisher under its open licence and is checked against that source each time the data is refreshed.

People on Universal Credit, Great Britain

Official statistics, not accredited

People on Universal Credit in Great Britain each month over the last five years.

Great Britain

8,359,744

May 2026

Verified against source, 30 October 2026, 12:06 UTC
Great Britain
02m4m6m8m10mJun 21Apr 22Feb 23Dec 23Oct 24Aug 25May 268.4m

Source: Department for Work and Pensions, Stat-Xplore. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

Data table

60 periods, newest first

PeriodGreat Britain
May 20268,359,744
Apr 20268,316,522
Mar 20268,289,214
Feb 20268,341,941
Jan 20268,322,836
Dec 20258,343,654
Nov 20258,302,781
Oct 20258,207,815
Sep 20258,117,635
Aug 20258,041,126
Jul 20257,933,923
Jun 20257,851,487
May 20257,736,489
Apr 20257,679,452
Mar 20257,595,104
Feb 20257,515,081
Jan 20257,391,758
Dec 20247,355,479
Nov 20247,276,174
Oct 20247,163,713
Sep 20247,078,809
Aug 20246,968,805
Jul 20246,904,613
Jun 20246,844,817
May 20246,757,645
Apr 20246,677,225
Mar 20246,598,882
Feb 20246,458,747
Jan 20246,359,305
Dec 20236,311,416
Nov 20236,220,120
Oct 20236,160,471
Sep 20236,096,218
Aug 20236,043,174
Jul 20236,011,281
Jun 20235,965,194
May 20235,930,392
Apr 20235,896,704
Mar 20235,853,185
Feb 20235,836,325
Jan 20235,799,603
Dec 20225,780,104
Nov 20225,756,781
Oct 20225,731,192
Sep 20225,684,229
Aug 20225,660,951
Jul 20225,620,044
Jun 20225,560,777
May 20225,541,838
Apr 20225,546,129
Mar 20225,533,417
Feb 20225,560,735
Jan 20225,563,333
Dec 20215,605,512
Nov 20215,652,946
Oct 20215,697,300
Sep 20215,738,896
Aug 20215,806,042
Jul 20215,842,565
Jun 20215,888,758

Nations and English regions, May 2026

AreaNumber
Great Britain8,359,744
England7,222,784
Wales429,688
Scotland697,278
North East403,362
North West1,085,689
Yorkshire and The Humber772,888
East Midlands596,680
West Midlands860,941
East of England679,625
London1,315,373
South East919,359
South West588,867

Download CSVDownload JSON with full provenance

Source and licence

Publisher
Department for Work and Pensions, Stat-Xplore
Check it yourself
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/universal-credit-statistics
Licence
Open Government Licence v3.0 – Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
Retrieved
30 October 2026, 12:02 UTC
Verified in
GitHub Actions run 41047883220, which alone can query Stat-Xplore; its raw response is not kept
Raw files fetched

Verification

Verified against source, 30 October 2026, 12:06 UTC Run at 30 October 2026, 12:06 UTC; 73 of 73 figures matched the live source.

ResultCheckDetail
PassProvenance recordedDepartment for Work and Pensions, Stat-Xplore; Open Government Licence v3.0; retrieved 2026-10-30T12:02:23Z; 1 Stat-Xplore response, read in the Actions job and never stored
PassRe-parsing the response reproduces figures73 of 73 figures reproduced by reading the response again in the Actions job
PassFigures are finite numbers73 figures, 0 invalid
PassLive source matches every figure73 of 73 figures match exactly after querying Stat-Xplore again (1 of 1 responses byte-identical)
PassStat-Xplore figures are currentlatest month May 2026 ended 152 days before retrieval (limit 200)
PassGOV.UK release headline agreesGreat Britain, May 2026: Stat-Xplore's 8,359,744, rounded to the nearest 0.1 million, equals the release's 8,400,000, in https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/universal-credit-quarterly-statistics-29-april-2013-to-14-may-2026/universal-credit-quarterly-statistics-29-april-2013-to-14-may-2026. A rounded headline checks that month's total, not every month
Not runNations add up to the totalEngland, Wales and Scotland sum to 8,349,750 in May 2026, −9,994 on the total of 8,359,744. DWP adjusts each figure by a small random amount and publishes no bound for it, so this gap is information, not a pass or a fail
Not runEnglish regions add up to EnglandThe nine English regions sum to 7,222,784 in May 2026, +0 on the total of 7,222,784. DWP adjusts each figure by a small random amount and publishes no bound for it, so this gap is information, not a pass or a fail
PassSource page answershttps://www.gov.uk/government/collections/universal-credit-statistics – HTTP 200

Notes

  • People on Universal Credit on the second Thursday of each month. DWP revises recent months as late claims are processed. The hub shows the last five years; Stat-Xplore holds earlier months.
  • DWP's total, like its published figures, includes cases abroad and cases whose address is not known, so the nations may not add up exactly to it.
  • DWP adds a small random amount to every figure in Stat-Xplore to protect confidentiality (it calls this Introduced Random Error) and publishes no bound for it, so nations and regions may not add up exactly to the total. The verification page shows the gaps for information.
  • Each refresh compares the latest month with the headline of DWP's GOV.UK release, which is rounded, so it checks that month's total; every month is checked against Stat-Xplore itself, queried twice.
  • The full series is on DWP's Stat-Xplore (stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk), where anyone with a free account can build the same table.